Sharing Apps and Songs with family members

I've just set my 2 kids up with their own apple ID's so that they can buy music that they like, instead of only having access to my wife an my music and apps. My wife thinks this was a bad idea, since now if we like songs that they download, we will have to buy them again, instead of before how we had everything load into one apple ID.

Before, our home iMac always had all our songs and apps, and if anyone wanted them, they had to sync their device to that one computer, or be tied into that apple ID account on the app/store. We were able to run everything thru our AppleTV that way also. Now they are independent of this account, can we still somehow tie our family accounts together, and share stuff amungst ourselves (similar to how we are still able to be logged into the same iCloud account, and share Calendars and Contacts)?

Sharing and being connected as a family on iCloud, has been a disappointment, and not as user friendly as it used to be when there was a iDisc, and MobileMe. I'm starting to feel like Apple is taking a downslide on thinking this thru more thoroughly...

Thoughts?