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Integrating Umbraco 7 into an existing MVC 4 Web application

This answer suggests that one should create a new project for Umbraco content management alongside the existing MVC application. I have created the new project as suggested, and installed Umbraco into it through NuGet.
So now I have 2 projects, one for my MVC application and one for CMS. Both are working as expected, meaning that I can add contents through the Umbraco UI after building the newly created Umbraco project.
My question is, how can I query the content from inside the MVC application in order to show the manageable content on my views? It seems that it can be done through the Umbraco REST API, but as both databases (for the MVC application and the CMS application) will reside on the same server this seems unefficient.

Traditionally one of the problems with Umbraco is that it is not a pure MVC architecture. This means that people are sometimes led to believe they will be able to implement a 100% MVC solution and then just manage their content through Umbraco.
The bad news is that you've found out the main issue with Umbraco so far. Namely that it doesn't render things using the standard MVC rendering engine. It has to use custom controllers to retrieve view-models, such as SurfaceControllers or UmbracoApiControllers (as mentioned by your example of using REST services to return the page data).
The good news is that things are getting better. Version 7.3.0 will be the first version to be bundled with MVC 5 as standard. Check out the beta version here to see if it is more suitable for your needs. Of course you may need to upgrade your MVC project to MVC 5 too.
Hopefully with 7.3.0 you'll be good.

Simplified "Razor-Only" website?

I have a website I want to make using the Razor template engine, however it really only has one simple page with a basic AJAX form in it. Having a full-blown MVC Web Application seems like a massive overkill for this, but I don't want to have to use something like PHP. Can I use Razor in a 'PHP-like' manner (i.e. one or two .cshtml/.vbhtml pages I can make requests to, in a similar function to how you make requests to .php pages)?
This will be hosted on IIS 8, if that'll help.

You can use razor with ASP.NET Websites (not web projects).
To do this go to File > New Web Site... and pick one of the templates that supports razor.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg606533%28v=vs.100%29.aspx
Gives more depth, however, you might be able to skip the first step "Installing the ASP.NET Razor Tools" if you already have it installed.

Can you use the CMS Orchard along side your own ASP.NET website?

I have a ASP.NET website which has various utility scripts/pages for some software but no public website. I would like to use Microsoft's Orchard CMS to create the website for visitors to look at - but would this mean I would have to move the utility scripts?
Can you run ASP.NET pages etc alongside Orchard or do you have to extend Orchard to do those tasks for you? If you can run scripts alongside, is there anything you should do to prevent interference with Orchard?
I will accept an answer from someone who has experience with Orchard or good reasoning.
Thanks in advance!

If you're speaking about existing ASP.NET WebForms application then I guess no, at least it won't be easy.
In this case your best bet would be to either
run those applications separately with appropriate rewrite rules, so for end-user it would look like a single application. With this approach you won't be able to access Orchard features (like user management) from your exisiting app, though.
rewrite your current pages to MVC and move those along with existing utility scripts to a separate Orchard module
If you're speaking about existing ASP.NET MVC application - the solution could be found here.

What design pattern should I follow for my web app?

I have an ASP.NET application that provides both front-end services (visualizations) and back-end services (data transformations and outputting some data from back-end SQL databases). I would like the following:
Extensible Back-end
Enable someone else to upload a "plugin" to enable additional REST API to be added
Extensible Front-end: I have the front-end currently with a top URL bar like this:
Category-1 Category-2 Category-3
--App11 ---App21 ---App31
--App12
I am looking for something like this: Assuming that my app has a simple admin panel, when someone uploads a compatible "module" with a manifest file, the app should add that into the main application and add a link to one of the categories based on what the plugin manifest says. Optionally, add a description of this plugin to the main application web page.
Specifically, I am looking for suggestions on the following:
How should the main application be structured?
What should the architecture of the plugin be like?
How do I enable a dashboard like design and let the plugin support it?
I have seen this in Joomla, a content management system but am not sure what is the design paradigm to be followed to enable this. I did a dumb thing and designed my currently (huge) application as separate aspx files linked from a main app. I don't mind rewriting parts of it but without a major rewrite, is it possible to achieve what I desire? Any suggestions on how to achieve this?

A basic solution:
Pretty close to bare-metal, but for back-end, you can create a dll, that contains the logic, and an HttpModule that registers new GenericHandlers to handle requests. Either use web.config to register plugin modules, or use Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure.DynamicModuleHelper to register your http modules at runtime just by copying into your bin without modifying web.config.
PortableAreas:
MVCContrib has a feature called "PortableAreas" that can be used to package UI and backend code into a dll like a plugin. MVC controllers can easily return HTML content for UI, and JSON or XML, to act like a REST web service. Also MVCContrib defines a "Bus" that can be used by plugins to communicate with the host app. Like "Hey, add a new link to categoryXY that points to me!".
Take a look at these blog posts about portable areas: asp net mvc portable areas via mvccontrib (talks about MVC2, but works in MVC3 as well). The latest version can be downloaded via nuget: MvcContrib.Mvc3-ci.
ASP.NET MVC is just "ASP.NET"
Therefore webforms and MVC can live in the same application.
Take a look at this article about "consuming a portable area with a web forms application". Basically it's just adding MVC related dlls and configuration to your existing application, and setting up communication.
Or really take a look at a real CMS,
maybe using one that has a working, documented plugin system is the real solution. Depends on what percent of the features would be part of the "core app", and what percent would be developed as plugins and your needs.

Help with getting started building an ASP.NET website using VS2010

Ok, I want to build a web site using ASP.Net. My web development skills are very small. However I have used C# a fair bit for some fairly intermediate level work (lists, dictionaries, custom classes etc)
The site I want to build will run on an intranet, and I'll be using the AD to get the current users information.
This information will be cross checked with an MS SQL 2008 database (that already exists on the network) to determine what links they can see.
Other parts of the site will allow the User Table to be viewed and modified if the current user is an admin, and have new users added.
So, what is the best way to do this? I've done some playing and basically confused myself with all the options available..
For example, I can create a New Project, which gives me options like Web Application, MVC2 Web App, MVC3 Web App, Empty Web App, Dynamic Data Entities Web App, Data Linq to SQL Web App, and then some Server controls.
But then I can also go for the New Web Site, which has Web Site, Web Site (Razor), Empty Web Site, Dynamic Data Entities Web Site, Dynamic Data Linq Web Site..
There are too many options!?!?!? And I don't understand what the difference is between them all..
What do people suggest I use?

Have you tried following some of the MSDN Beginner Developer Learning Center stuff? They have a module on Beginning Website Development.

May be I am not answering to the point, but my 2cents. Why don't you go for Sharepoint development in this case. You can use Sharepoint site (having inbuilt AD support too) and develop custom webparts (like the part which queries SQL Server 2008). The advantage of using this is that you can merge the feature in intranet site (if you got one already using Sharepoint), and you can learn new stuffs too. Even it will be quick one and if in future, you want to use the Intranet site for different things, it's easily extensible with minimal fuss.

There are some good tutorials for MVC here http://www.asp.net/mvc.
I suggest if you are building a web site to use MVC as it seems like the latest and greatest from MS at this time. My personal opinion tho.
You would want to just start with New Project.

Ok, this is a lot of things to look at and there a are a few ways to tackle this. First all all just stick to New Web Site for now.
First things is to know if this is an intranet or internet?
it seems like it since you want to use AD, that it is an internal app.
Although there are many ways to accomplish what you are trying to do. I Think the following would be the easiest to implement.
1) Enable digest authentication
2) Set a IE group policy to the User authentication policy to Automatically logon only to intranet - This way people dont get confused to what they enter.
3) Create groups for each type of user in AD
4) Separate each functionality into different folders.
5) Set the web.config for permissons to the appororiate directories.

#Matt provided a link to a useful video ("Choosing the right programming model"). In it, Microsoft's Scott Hanselman describes the distinguishing characteristics of the three primary ASP paths: ASP.NET Web Forms, ASP.NET MVC, or ASP.NET Web Pages. Here's the main bullet points from that presentation:
ASP.NET Web Forms:
Familiar control- and event-based programming model
Controls encapsulate HTML, JS and CSS
Rich UI controls included - datagrids, charts, AJAX (common tasks available out-of-the-box)
Browser differences handled for you
SharePoint builds on Web Forms (so, useful if you want to be a SharePoint dev)
ASP.NET MVC:
Feels comfortable for many traditional web developers
Total control of HTML markup (controls not provided; good grasp of HTML required)
Supports Unit testing, TDD and Agile methodologies
Encourages more prescriptive applications
Extremely flexible and extensible
ASP.NET Web Pages:
Easy to pick up and learn (similar to PHP or classic ASP)
Inline scripting model with Razor and C# or VB.NET
Simplified model with Top-to-bottom execution
Full control over your HTML
Friendly Helper syntax (encapsulated functionality, similar to Web Forms controls) makes extending your apps easy
All these models are built on common ASP libraries, so there is considerable overlap, and a fairly straightforward path to migrate an app from one model to another.