>It sure would be nice if the ASP.NET scripting mechanism was abstracted enough to separate the HTTP components (Request, Response etc.) and just provided the scripting engine itself so you can basically feed it a string and have it eval out a la TextMerge including server controls.

Rick,

Does the HttpWorkerRequest Class fill your need?
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpref/html/frlrfsystemwebihttphandlerclasstopic.asp
"This abstract class defines the base worker methods and enumerations used by ASP.NET managed code to process requests."