>Any input will be greatly appreciated...
Ken,

Developing a framework is not a small project. I did develop one as part of a contract for another firm and the time from initial design to completion of the first prototype was about 3-4 months. The framework has been in constant revision now for about 1 year and has recently settled for this project. We are already anticipating major revisions of the framework for the next project.

The research I did for my conference presentation on "Designing Your Own Framework" found that almost all of the experts in the field agree that it takes at least three projects using the framework before the framework reaches a really solid state. So for your presentation to your boss, be sure to mention that any framework goes through an iterative process of evolution with subsequent projects so he doesn't allocate time for it and then not allocate any time later for revisions.

It does not take a genius to develop a framework, but framework design is different than application design. The areas of concern are different and the coding is more complex due to the reusability factor. A framework cannot assume anything about the application that is running on top of it and therefore requires more analysis and design work up front, before the coding.