Hey Eric,
Sorry, it sounds like a real big mess.
Why, or more, how did your Sequence end up as 23.98 fps?
Is that the intended master-format?
Hopefully, it is 23.97 fps?
What is the frame-size of your rushes (6K, 4K, 2K?), and the exported master?
Was it shot in Progressive, or have you set the sequence up to be progressive?
Two suggestions to try:
Export clean master High Quality of the 23.98 fps sequence – no graphics and no animations on it.
Put through Media Encoder, and export to 25fps High Quality file, and see what happens?
The other is to copy your edits in to a 25 fps interlaced Sequence, and see how that reacts?
As you suggest, the most important part is to keep the smoothness of the camera movement.
And, then there is the potential of audio that needs to match?
Good news is that since PAL v NTSC, a lot of science has gone into making the perfect frame-rate conversions between the two. So this can be fixed.
Hope that this helps?
Atb
Mads