When doing multi-lingual sites with umbraco, you often have each language as a root node. That's the recommended approach and how umbraco is designed, based on the assumption that most multi-lingual sites (95%+) don't share the same content structure. A site in a new language is often a site for a new market, which means different way of communicating and maybe even variants in the products/services you want to promote.
When we design the features of the umbraco core, we always design for the majority while making sure that the minority can extend. That way the core doesn't get bloated; the UI stays simple which is a benefit for the most which is how everything should be designed. Conventions over configuration.
Those few where umbraco seems like a perfect fit except a little detail can enjoy the richness of the umbraco extensibility – that umbraco is designed in an open way with great possibilities of customizing without modifying the core.
That’s what umbraco Certified Developer Torleik Ravn from the Danish company Kraftvaerk did for a client. They needed multi-lingual 1:1 sites and he wanted to use umbraco. Not problem due to the framework nature of umbraco and in the spirit of openness he wrote a great tutorial in the book section.
Hopefully the great work of Torleik will inspire others. Sharing your work and knowledge is a great way to contribute to the umbraco project and is as valuable as a strong, well-defined core.