I am working on launching a few industry specific sub-brands for our marketing agency and am trying to figure out the best way to deliver a tailored user experience using subfolders instead of subdomains, if this is indeed the best option...

Since I am trying to provide separate experiences, I looking at housing microsites in sub-folders - say /technology or /medical.  Each with its own navigation, home page, and industry specific content/blog/portfolio.  A couple things I am considering:

Will my microsite "home pages" and site pages rank as well in a sub-folder versus if they were actually the primary pages on their own sub-domain?

Will separate Wordpress and theme installs and separate primary navigations have any affect on SEO if they are in sub-folders of the same site?

Thanks in advance for any input.  I really appreciate it!