I have used a WYSIWYG web builder with a free Brinkster acct(VERY AWESOME FREE HOST) but now i got a acct w/ Dreamhost and i want to put up a business selling Western wear and other Cowboy gear, Saddles, tack, art, etc.I have messed around on W3 schools website learning HTML for awhile now. I even downloaded a editor Bluefish that seems to be kind of nice. And i use firefox so i grabbed an ext. called ftp that i'm thinking will work perfect, if not please tell me so. Also I want to know how easy it will be to go back and little by little swap the Joomla template w/ my own pages as i learn more. But there is a high importance on getting the site up right away. So am i correct in thinking that perhaps it should help me in that area, OR NOT ? Will it be anything like using the web builder im already familiar with ? My problem has been SEO trouble because of lack of control but joomla isnt like that so i should be alright, but then whats the downside to it ? What about ads ?

joomla and other content management systems can provide you with a great amount of functionality that would take quite some time to replicate in web pages on your own. (even with a wysiwyg editor) With Joomla, you can concentrate more on getting your site functionality in line rather than fiddling with the minutia of building the site.

Personally, i prefer to build sites from the ground up, but the lack of time in your case prompts me to suggest otherwise.