I have a scenario where I need custom fields within my custom visualforce page that cannot be generated using <apex:inputField>.  Here's a look at the code (devoid of spaces, for some reason):

<apex:pageBlockSectiontitle="Event Date and Time"id="dateSection">

<inputtype="text"id="startDate"style="width:120px"/>&nbsp;

<apex:selectListvalue="{!startHour}"multiselect="false"size="1"id="startHour">

<apex:selectOptionitemValue="01"itemLabel="1"/>

<apex:selectOptionitemValue="02"itemLabel="2"/>

<apex:selectOptionitemValue="03"itemLabel="3"/>

<apex:selectOptionitemValue="04"itemLabel="4"/>

<apex:selectOptionitemValue="05"itemLabel="5"/>

<apex:selectOptionitemValue="06"itemLabel="6"/>

<apex:selectOptionitemValue="07"itemLabel="7"/>

<apex:selectOptionitemValue="08"itemLabel="8"/>

<apex:selectOptionitemValue="09"itemLabel="9"/>

<apex:selectOptionitemValue="10"itemLabel="10"/>

<apex:selectOptionitemValue="11"itemLabel="11"/>

<apex:selectOptionitemValue="12"itemLabel="12"/>

</apex:selectList>:

<apex:selectListvalue="{!startMinute}"size="1"id="startMinute">

<apex:selectOptionitemValue="00"/>

<apex:selectOptionitemValue="15"/>

<apex:selectOptionitemValue="30"/>

<apex:selectOptionitemValue="45"/>

</apex:selectList>&nbsp;

<apex:selectListvalue="{!startAmPm}"size="1"id="startAmPm">

<apex:selectOptionitemValue="AM"/>

<apex:selectOptionitemValue="PM"/>

</apex:selectList>

<apex:inputHiddenvalue="{!startTimeStamp}"id="startTimeStamp"/>

</apex:pageBlockSection>

You get the idea.  It's a date.  It has a Date text field, and an Hour, Minue, and AM/PM selectList field.

I want to make it look like standard salesforce, within a pageBlockSection.  However, this makes the whole page blow up.  I tried to make the pageBlockSection tag empty and manually create the fields within a table that I made myself using the SF class names on the cells, but then the whole following section disappears in FF and IE.  I can't put them into a pageBlockSectionItem, because it complains that pageBlockSectionItem can only have 2 child elements.

Does this make any sense?  Anybody have any clues?