The idea of a base controller is not very MVC.
In my shops I have controllers called 'departmenets' and 'products'. The departments controller calls the departments model that gets products for that department. The method is 'browse' so the url's are something like departments/browse/department_name.
For products the product controller calls a products model that gets all the product details, so the url for a product is something like products/show/product_name.
The home page has its own controller 'home' as that is usually a complex page.
Information pages like 'about us' and 'why shop' are done with an information controller.
The basket has a 'basket' controller and the checkout has a 'checkout' controller, etc.
Hope that helps.
Paul
PS Everyone does these things in different ways but do not have a 'base' controller for all your pages. For instance I have a render_page in my layouts library that deals with the headers and footers and specific elements of any page.
