I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this but I'm new,

I wanted to work my way into using some type of CMS for all the sites i host.My goal is to be able to provide my customers with a simple, easy to use site where they can customize, add, and remove any content they please. weather it be just page content, or pictures and videos. While allowing me to stay in control of the hosting and the design and layout.

I started working with Joomla 1.5 for a little bit, but started to get overwhelmed pretty quick.
Even with ad dons and modules I can not for the life of me get my Joomla site to look less like a blog site, and more like a web site not made out of articles.

Is there a system that has less restrictions with more flexibility then the Joomla system?

As you know, CMS's all have different uses. I personally spent many days trying to understand how to customize a site in both Drupal and joomla and found them pretty difficult. I then started using Wordpress and after a few good tutorials I was making my own complete site themes from scratch.

I now have total control over the look of my sites(very important to me) plus the added CMS ability. Many will say WP isn't really a CMS but it can do amazing things. You don't have to have all the posts showing on the home page for instance. You can pull just titles, certain categories or even have a static home page if you want.

I have found in general, all my clients really want is some control over the text. Anything beyond that, I am explaining over and over how to do and it gets messy and wastes my time. WP just makes adding posts, pages, pictures, etc. easy IMO. Of course if you want to build a social network or ecommerce, then maybe there are better options.

Hope this helped bit.

I use Joomla, and I love it, you can make it look anyway you want. I didn't find it hard to use at all.

I'm just starting out in Joomla myself. I switched from the default template to JA_Purity and am working on a replacement banner and logo. There are also several thousand free templates available. Some request you include a link to their creator's site, but it's usually just a "Templat created by . . ." text link under your copyright notice at the bottom of the page.

I use the "read more" line in any long articles, so at least three show up in most browsers. I haven't played much with add-ons yet, but I hope eventually to have a members area. Not sure if I'll go the social network route or stick to a forum/PM/chat level.

It sounds like you're hoping to create a social network. It might be faster to start out with something that's already set up with the features you need. I googled "social network software" and found several companies that offer free and low cost systems.

There are a ton of CMS's systems out there, some for corporate websites while some are for blogging "Wordpress", all or most CMS have plugins which can extend the usability and interaction with the site and the clients,

Developing a template is not hard however developing a template which looks as professional as Joomlart, TemplatePlazza, Gavick, RockeTheme and the likes takes a learning curve, I have been using joomla for 2 to 3 years now and can develop website themes from scratch that are fully XHTML valid.

If you are looking to develop a website with the intent of not developing a custom theme Joomla is your best option I would think.

If you are a developer and develop your own themes Drupal is another alternative.

If your website is more of a blog WordPress is probably the best solution.

Of course, Joomla now has a plugin for Wordpress "bridge" so it connects users with both databases.