Here is the scenario ... I am also using tortoise SVN ...
I can create a new folder and do a checkout with the "only this item" option ... this will checkout just the top level folder, I can then go into the repo browser and select any subfolder i want to "update to revision" (in the repo browser right click, select update to revision) ... this will bring down only that subfolder ...
Is there a way to remove the folder without removing it from the repository?
If not, my other option is to simply checkout the subprojects individually (this might be the best solution), lets see if anyone has an answer to the above.
Checking out the subdirectories (which can be treated as repositories in their own right) individually, as you suggested is the cleanest way to do this. That's pretty common with folks who I've seen have SVN repositories that look like this from the root
/
/proj1
/trunk
/branches
/tags
/proj2
/trunk
/branches
/tags