Really Need Help needed with permissions/password module

The site I need some help rectifying the functionality of is at http://www.milliepilkington.co.uk/

I styled and configured this site last year and got it functioning exactly how the client wanted - however something has been changed in the backend recently by another 'site admin' and I am trying to get it back functioning how it was! Trouble is a year is a long time and I've lost touch with G2 a bit.

This is how it was set up and functioning:
http://www.milliepilkington.com/index.htm is a dummy home page to hide the root G2 page at http://www.milliepilkington.com/main.php. This is still OK.

The top right navigation, which still works fine, is a custom css menu I added: Children, Adults, Wedding & Other link to 'portfolio' G2 albums. These have no sub-albums, and all users/guest can view all items and resizes. These are for viewing only and not for puchasing/ordering/downloading etc.

The Client link is different from the others though. This links to a parent album (Clients) that has numerous client sub-albums (children), one for each of her clients that she has photographed. The Client sub-albums are all enabled with 'checkout' and 'checkOut via email' modules so that each client (and their friends/family) can view their photoshoot and send orders to the photographer via email. She then processes the order and payment is done 'manually'. A decision was made early on to avoid the use of 'user registration' and make use of a single password (password module) to protect each client sub-album. This afforded the individual clients privacy of their photos, and also offered a single password that the photographer could distribute to the specific client, which they could then distribute to their family/friends to access the specific photoshoot. I customised 'Checkout Via email' to allow 'guests' with the correct password to input their specific contact/address details during the checkout process, rather than the order being linked to a 'registered user' details.

OK. The parent Client album should let 'everybody' group see all sub-album item thumbnails - but when they click on a client sub-album thumbnail they should be prompted for the album password. On entering the correct password, they then see all the thumbnails within the client sub-album and can view resizes and add to cart etc.

The photographer uploads new client sub-albums of client photoshoots to the parent Clients album using Gallery Remote - she then assigned a password to the album (Edit album>General>password protection) and informed the client of it. These new sub-albums uploaded via G.Remote were all created/inherited? the correct album/theme set up (i.e. shopping cart info & add to cart blocks in the sidebar, view resizes available, checkout via email enabled).

This was all working fine.... until....

Now all the client sub-albums are viewable by 'everybody' even though passwords were assigned to them all over the course of last year. On testing new albums uploaded via G.Remote, new client -sub albums are not visible by 'guest/everybody' and the permissions have to be updated manually (add [core]ViewItem) so they can be seen. This also conflicts with what the password module tells you

I also have to add the Checkout blocks to the sidebar, before assigning the password to the album. The password is then NOT asked for???

I'm concerned about changing permissions on all the existing sub-albums that have password protection already enabled, as I have experience that this corrupts the album access and it has to be re-uploaded (see http://gallery.menalto.com/node/73367). I don't want to tell the client she has to do this!

I'd REALLY appreciate some assistance on getting this Clients album (and sub-albums) back to how it was and that new client sub-albums, uploaded via G.Remote, inherit the correct client sub-album settings and only need a password assigning.

Anyone?