As you said, there's nothing really out of of the box that does that.
The front end doesn't really matters. It depends what you're confortbale with.
You can use the java Api or the Flex component to get to the process management information. If you're planning to use this application outside of workspace, I think it'll be easier to use the java api as oppose to the workspace-runtime.swc, since that compoent was built to be used within the context of Workspace.
I hope that helps.
Jasmin