You already have a list of desired functionality, so complete your list and download and review each of the top 3-5 OpenSource CMS. Questions that interest me:
Ease of installation.
Ease of upgrades (especially if you add a bunch of 3rd party plugins).
Security - how does the CMS rank (PHP has a security history).
System resource requirements (small or big footprint).
Learning curve (for system admin and users).
I think that the "right" questions concentrate on content creation, which includes authoring, distribution mechanisms and versioning/archiving.
ReplyDeleteBut to answer:
1. This is a one time deal but see #2.
2. Drupal is known to be painful to upgrade if your admin sans programming. WP is known to be much easier.
3. This is a fruitless battle to engage in.
4. I'd be impressed if there were an order of magnitude impact among actual CMS -- they all use PHP+SQL backends. There are some performance differences, however.
5. Everything has a learning curve and as Tom said there is basically an anti-correlation between functionality and learning curve.