Steve -
A few more details about doing this in LR ...
Once the raw files are in LR, you can either assign one ACR-like preset to operate on all of them, or, with hardly any more effort, partition the set into named processing groups. So, for a wedding or some similar event spanning hours, I might have presets like, "afternoon front lit", "afternoon backlit", "dusk front lit", "evening tungsten", "evening fluorescent", "evening mixed", etc. and assign groups of images to one of these presets.
I also have set up a few "export" presets to specify what I want done with the images after the raw processor presets have been applied. The example shown below is probably the most similar to your requirement, ie, export to a mid-sized JPG with some modest sharpening applied.
Once you have a few raw and export presets set up and you had selected all the raw files in the directory (ie, control-A), your entire job would literally require nothing more than two-mouse-clicks.
PS, or ACR-then-PS is great when you want to perfect a relatively small number of photographic images, but when you are trying to grind through a lot of photos with a more moderate degree of care, LR is vastly more efficient. Also, if you need to process a few of the images in PS, there's always the option to export those as PSD files.
HTH,
Tom
