WordPress 3 as a CMS with dynamic listings Blog

Hi all,

a few weeks ago I started to use WordPress 3.0.1 with the Thematic Theme Framework to build a personal, but professional quality website. My goals with the site is to:

1. provide content — translations of various, 2 000-15 000 words essays — in different categories, but with:

• category pages with dynamic, chronological listings of the content,
• category pages with descriptions above the listings,
• subscription options (feeds) for each category,
• eliminating any sign of the comment system on the category and content pages

• provide an additional blog that is clearly separated from the main content, but included in the main feed of the site; and the blog should support commenting.

WordPress installation (on WAMP) was a breeze, and I managed to learn CSS, hooks, filters, and even did some JavaScript to implement text resize and sidebar hiding options on the page… The design is almost ready, so I started to look into how to actually structure the content. This is where I started to feel really confused about what to do. Should I use pages, posts or custom post types for the CMS-like content (long essays)? How to separate it clearly from blog posts, while providing dynamic listings, descriptions above listings and feeds?

• If I use pages I have to create custom page templates to have dynamic page listings and feeds; but I will have a clean URL.
• If I use posts I have to create custom category templates to include descriptions on the dynamic listing pages, and I don’t like the “category” part of the URL.
• Or should I use posts for the content, but then create pages with custom post listings, instead of making category templates?
• Or should I use custom post type? I have no idea about how dynamic listings and feeds work with custom post types.
• And lastly, how to provide an effective, clutterless permalink structure for categories/posts that doesn’t confuse users but also doesn’t hurt server performance?

Obviously I would choose the option that needs the least modifications/hacks, and provides the best usability in the long term. But I’m not confident about any of these options, and I don’t even know which option should I research on the internet. There are many articles, but I suppose many of them are obsolete in the light of the new custom post types.

Could anybody provide some ideas about what route should/could I choose? I feel that there is a lack of clear/official implementation strategies if we are talking about CMS, and especially CMS+blog, use. ??

(BTW, sorry for the long post. I have problems with keeping things short… :))