Yeah, whatever you do, don't use Joomla!.
Every one of my sites is based on Joomla!. I love it and Google loves it.
It took me six months to fully utilize Joomla! and to develop a bullet-proof method for optimizing it. It kicks ass! Far more control and far better results than WP.
Once they are built then I manage all of them almost exclusively from a desktop application and a Firefox add-on.
It's tough in the beginning, but if you are willing to put in the effort, Joomla! is the only way to go.
Some Joomla! templates are HUGE, but you can choose smaller ones, or learn how to prune the BS.
Tip: Buy a year-long subscription to a template developer, like RocketTheme, and get all the free forum support you can eat. If you do this for a while, and keep a local record of everything you learn (you can usually apply a solution/fix to many templates), then the process gets very simple over time.