diff --git a/app.psgi b/app.psgi
index ffc1d3c83..d42c34d7a 100644
--- a/app.psgi
+++ b/app.psgi
@@ -13,8 +13,8 @@ builder {
     
     # Open/close the WebGUI::Session at the outer-most onion layer
     enable '+WebGUI::Middleware::Session', 
-        config => $wg->config;#,
-        #error_docs => { 500 => "$root/www/maintenance.html" };
+        config => $wg->config,
+        error_docs => { 500 => "$root/www/maintenance.html" };
     
     # Return the app
     $wg;
diff --git a/lib/WebGUI/Exception.pm b/lib/WebGUI/Exception.pm
index 2e28b1231..cb9755d62 100644
--- a/lib/WebGUI/Exception.pm
+++ b/lib/WebGUI/Exception.pm
@@ -264,6 +264,12 @@ use Exception::Class (
         description     => "Couldn't establish a connection.",
         fields          => [qw{ resource }],
         },
+     
+     
+     'WebGUI::Error::Fatal' => {
+        isa             => 'WebGUI::Error',
+        description     => "Fatal error that should be shown to all site visitors.",
+        },
 
 );
 
diff --git a/lib/WebGUI/Middleware/Debug.pm b/lib/WebGUI/Middleware/Debug.pm
deleted file mode 100644
index 6098687bc..000000000
--- a/lib/WebGUI/Middleware/Debug.pm
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,39 +0,0 @@
-package WebGUI::Middleware::Debug;
-use strict;
-use parent qw(Plack::Middleware);
-use Plack::Middleware::StackTrace;
-use Plack::Middleware::Debug;
-use Plack::Middleware::HttpExceptions;
-
-=head1 NAME
-
-WebGUI::Middleware::Debug - 
-
-=head1 DESCRIPTION
-
-This is PSGI middleware for WebGUI that 
-
-=cut
-
-sub call {
-    my ( $self, $env ) = @_;
-
-    my $session = $env->{'webgui.session'} or die 'WebGUI::Session missing';
-
-    my $app = $self->app;
-
-    if ( $session->log->canShowDebug ) {
-        warn 'seeing webgui.debug';
-        $env->{'webgui.debug'} = 1;
-        $app = Plack::Middleware::StackTrace->wrap($app);
-        $app = Plack::Middleware::Debug->wrap( $app,
-            panels => [qw(Environment Response Timer Memory Session DBITrace PerlConfig Response)] );
-    }
-    
-    # Turn exceptions into HTTP errors
-    $app = Plack::Middleware::HTTPExceptions->wrap( $app );
-
-    return $app->($env);
-}
-
-1;
diff --git a/lib/WebGUI/Middleware/HTTPExceptions.pm b/lib/WebGUI/Middleware/HTTPExceptions.pm
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..132747452
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lib/WebGUI/Middleware/HTTPExceptions.pm
@@ -0,0 +1,36 @@
+package WebGUI::Middleware::HTTPExceptions;
+use strict;
+use parent qw(Plack::Middleware::HTTPExceptions);
+
+=head1 NAME
+
+WebGUI::Middleware::HTTPExceptions - Converts Exceptions into HTTP Errors
+
+=head1 DESCRIPTION
+
+This is PSGI middleware for WebGUI that detects exceptions and turns
+them into HTTP Errors. This class is a subclass of L<Plack::Middleware::HTTPExceptions>
+
+=cut
+
+use Carp ();
+use Try::Tiny;
+use Scalar::Util 'blessed';
+use HTTP::Status ();
+
+sub transform_error {
+    my $self = shift;
+    my ($e, $env) = @_;
+
+    # Handle WebGUI::Error::Fatal errors specially, since unlike most 500
+    # errors we actually want the user to see the error message (generated by
+    # $session->log->fatal)
+    if (blessed $e && $e->isa('WebGUI::Error::Fatal')) {
+        my $message = $e->message;
+        return [ 500, [ 'Content-Type' => 'text/html', 'Content-Length' => length($message) ], [ $message ] ];
+    } else {
+        $self->SUPER::transform_error(@_);
+    }
+}
+
+1;
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/lib/WebGUI/Middleware/Session.pm b/lib/WebGUI/Middleware/Session.pm
index 069bc3506..b847adc9d 100644
--- a/lib/WebGUI/Middleware/Session.pm
+++ b/lib/WebGUI/Middleware/Session.pm
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ use WebGUI::Session;
 use Try::Tiny;
 use Plack::Middleware::StackTrace;
 use Plack::Middleware::Debug;
-use Plack::Middleware::HTTPExceptions;
+use WebGUI::Middleware::HTTPExceptions;
 use Plack::Middleware::ErrorDocument;
 
 use Plack::Util::Accessor qw( config error_docs );
@@ -31,20 +31,19 @@ and not worry about closing it.
 sub call {
     my ( $self, $env ) = @_;
 
-    my $app   = $self->app;
+    my $app = $self->app;
     my $config = $self->config or die 'Mandatory config parameter missing';
 
     my $session = try {
         $env->{'webgui.session'} = WebGUI::Session->open( $config->getWebguiRoot, $config, $env );
     };
-    
-    if (!$session) {
+
+    if ( !$session ) {
+
         # We don't have access to a db connection to find out if the user is allowed to see
         # a verbose error message or not, so resort to a generic Internal Server Error
         # (using the error_docs mapping)
-        return Plack::Middleware::ErrorDocument->wrap( 
-            sub { [ 500, [], [] ] }, 
-            %{ $self->error_docs } )->($env);
+        return Plack::Middleware::ErrorDocument->wrap( sub { [ 500, [], [] ] }, %{ $self->error_docs } )->($env);
     }
 
     my $debug = $session->log->canShowDebug;
@@ -55,7 +54,7 @@ sub call {
     }
 
     # Turn exceptions into HTTP errors
-    $app = Plack::Middleware::HTTPExceptions->wrap($app);
+    $app = WebGUI::Middleware::HTTPExceptions->wrap($app);
 
     # HTTP error document mapping
     if ( !$debug && $self->error_docs ) {
diff --git a/lib/WebGUI/Session/ErrorHandler.pm b/lib/WebGUI/Session/ErrorHandler.pm
index 783247567..f14713f51 100644
--- a/lib/WebGUI/Session/ErrorHandler.pm
+++ b/lib/WebGUI/Session/ErrorHandler.pm
@@ -257,8 +257,10 @@ If this problem persists, please contact us with what you were trying to do and
 END_HTML
 	}
 	
-	# Fatal errors cause an exception to be thrown
-	WebGUI::Error->throw( error => $error );
+	# Fatal errors cause an exception to be thrown - use WebGUI::Error::Fatal so
+	# that WebGUI knows to show this error message to all site users (instead of showing
+	# non-debug users the generic error screen)
+	WebGUI::Error::Fatal->throw( error => $error );
 }