Throwing some ideas from my brain into pixels here…

Web publishing tools. Here’s my current thinking:

Evaluation
Looking for tools that are mature, actively developed, have a wide userbase and active forums, are open source, can have both open source and paid support, can use our own PHP knowledge to customise, and obviously suit our hosting environment at Pair Networks.

• Super-static site (well, even with some PHP): Dreamweaver. It’s now Adobe, and definitely “industry standard” for offline content creation. Even has the Contribute client editing option for client-based updates.
• Basic CMS: WordPress. Open source, large large user base. Active development, can be extended. A little frustrating in terms of client publishing tools, as clients understand things like tables or good media management, and WordPress ain’t so good at in-line table-based designs. Can add a blog/news function. Basic hooks into other programs, like PHP List. Still really designed as a blogging platform though. Frustrating also in terms of support: huge userbase doesn’t necessarily translate into useful support: some support posts (many?) never get answered, lost in hyperspace without answers. Great for smaller standalone sites.
• Advanced CMS: MODx. Powerful application framework, my only concern is the size of the userbase and “speed to market” of progress. Some good loooking add-on resources, I think this would be the most flexible option. May use add-ins such as the Asbru web content editor for client publishing. Info-marketers sites? Hmmm, not sure yet. May still fall into either the WordPress or Joomla categories.
• Commerce CMS: Joomla with VirtueMart. Impressed by the Joomla userbase, again (as all CMS here) open source and active development community. Great range of extenstions/plugins etc, covers most needs beyond WordPress environment without in-depth/advanced nature of using MODx. Seems more consumer-friendly but still pretty powerful. Combined with VirtueMart, good online commerce tool. Looking forward to 1.5 release away from Mambo branch, so long as time from beta 2 doesn’t stretch too far down the track. Business-level tool with plenty of available freelancers for paid contributions/support.

All of the CMS options give me room to customise (especially MODx), but also WordPress and Joomla in a more supported environment. Can see ease of finding Joomla freelancers, as its a very popular solution. No so for WordPress, as it is much less business-orientated, but not really needed. Would like to explore more of MU WordPress for ease of ongoing maintenance. Those options should cover just about all of the areas I need to cover!