hey guys, i build most sites the old fashion way, i have seen joomla and drupal and so on... but what are the benefits? is it worth the learning curve?

Benefits wise:
Saves time in the long term for big projects.
Easy to adjust.

Lets downs:
limited (it can't do exactly what you want)
Popular code (so more people try and exploit it)

Learning curve:
non existent.

Hope this helps :P