You can do exactly what you need with paypals reference transactions.
Also if you use their NVP api, and web payments pro then the user does not need to leave your site and you can take c/c details on your site and pass directly to paypal.
i.e You don't need to store their CC details you only need the reference transaction ID and you can re bill any amount you want.
You also don't have to worry about PCI compliance. I'll talk about this in more detail on today's techzing. http://techzinglive.com
It sounds like this is pretty close to what he was doing originally, but then you have to write your own code and screens to handle dunning (as stated in the article).
Chargify gives you a hosted payment page that you can brand with your own CSS so you never touch the CC at all. It works waaaay better than Amazon, and is not nearly as jarring.
If you don't like that, you can build your own page and pass off the CC details via the API, but I went with quick-and-easy Chargify hosted pages and have been very, very pleased.
Also if you use their NVP api, and web payments pro then the user does not need to leave your site and you can take c/c details on your site and pass directly to paypal.
i.e You don't need to store their CC details you only need the reference transaction ID and you can re bill any amount you want.
You also don't have to worry about PCI compliance. I'll talk about this in more detail on today's techzing. http://techzinglive.com