Need help consolidating referenced and managed photos.

I'm looking for the best way to merge the Aperture managed images on my mac, my Aperture referenced images on our network drive/directories, and whatever pictures my wife has stored on the network drive, with the least angst and effort, and that we both can access/use. Can anyone with experience advise on the best approach?

You can use Aperture to consolidate referenced originals in one photo library with the "File > Consolidate" command.

And you can use Aperture to merge separate iPhoto and Aperture libraries into one library. If the Aperture versions and iPhoto versions match, for example Aperture 3.6 and iPhoto 9.6 you can open the iPhoto libraries in Aperture and vice versa.

See these help documents:

• Aperture 3.3: Using a unified photo library with iPhoto and Aperture
• Aperture 3.3: How to use Aperture to merge iPhoto libraries
• Aperture 3 User Manual: Working with Referenced Images

But the sad news is, that there is no safe way to store an Aperture library or an iPhoto library on a network drive. It is simply not supported.

See: Use locally mounted Mac OS X Extended volumes for your Aperture library

The only supported way to share photo libraries is the sneaker drive. Use a portable drive to store the library and plug it into the machine, where you want to use it: See this link: iPhoto: Sharing libraries among multiple users

Also, since Apple is ceasing Aperture support, is there another course of action that's appropriate? I've heard nothing on this since November, thought it was imminent.

Apple is not ceasing Aperture support, but stopping the development of new versions. Your current Aperture version will work, as long as you are using compatible MacOS X versions.

The successor to Aperture and iPhoto, Photos for Mac, to be released early this year, will support iCloud Photo Library (Beta). It will be the first supported cloud based Photo Library, but nothing is known, if this library will support the sharing of libraries between users.

It is already available for Apple's mobile devices with iOS8. See: iCloud Photo Library beta FAQ

You could also go to referenced photos instead of a managed library. Referenced photos could live on a NAS device, but there are still issues of the file format of the NAS. Macs can't necessarily read off certain NAS devices if they use a format like NTFS.

You'd use the "Relocate masters" command to move photos out of the managed library and to some other storage site. But again, if that NAS has a format a Mac can't write to, then it isn't gonna work. And BTW, this would be limitation independent of whether you used Aperture, iPhoto, Lightroom, etc etc. Whatever Mac software you use has to be able to write and read from that NAS.

Another way to go is to use a photo browser, which is just that: something that acts like the Finder and browses photos. A good one for situations where you might have storage that goes offline (like DVDs, removed external drives, or unavailable NAS) is NeoFinder; it makes a list of the photos and makes previews, then stores that locally so you can find stuff even when it's not hooked up to your Mac.