Thanks for the advice. There's no way my wife is going to be able to demonstrate financial capacity to support a family on her own. She's a student and a homemaker, so unless they're literally just checking bank statements and I deposit my paycheck into an account with her name on it, this doesn't sound like it's going to work.

I'll pull the trigger on the skilled migration visa when things are more solid, but it's good to know that there is a big lead time for this process.

As for the Ph. D thing, someone else pointed out that masters degrees have the research/coursework distinction I was talking about. They were called postgraduate diplomas where I looked, and the departments I checked didn't offer Ph. D's, so I'm straight there.