I use Joomla for 15 websites, I have good knowledge of HTML/CSS but I wouldn't touch the raw approach again - except for a couple of websites I haven't bothered up dating. I've handed a number of websites over to people with zero technical knowledge and they rarely have to call for help.

Joomla does lack a good introduction and it is a steep learning curve. You need to dive in and put a good bit of content in and then find out what you can do with it. Lots of extensions for there is usually a solution for whatever you want to do.

Drupal is more purist and as a consequence much harder to learn and less widely used.

I do pay for some templates and the odd extension but for the most part its free.

The biggest +++ of a CMS is it makes the website easier to edit so it get updated more often.

Simon