I've looked for this in both the documentation and via searching this forum, so forgive me if this is a stupid question. I have a feeling it is, and I'm just overlooking or not understanding something.
Can I make it so a specific user has complete management access to one or more categories on my gallery without going so far as to give them complete admin access to the entire site?
no, this has been requested before (using the terms "moderator", "sub-admin" or alike) but can't be done at the moment. You can only grant privileges to: see pics, upload, send ecards, rate, comment; you can not grant privileges to change those permissions or change properties of categories and albums.
GauGau