How about a client with it's own wallet but no block chain and I set one node only which would be my own full client. Would something like this work? Would be great for people with a bunch of laptops or whatnot...
Yup. Just need to adapt this for Litecoin.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BCCAPIEssentially a server backend which lite clients connect to. You could have a private backend server supporting a single wallet, or a private server supporting multiple private wallets, or a public server supporting multiple clients.