I'd say look for a theme that looks like a cms, then check out the wordpress plugin directory (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/) and from there you can find user management systems, seo helpers, contact forms, profile systems, and pretty much anything you can think of; its a great resource.
This site has a wide range of templates designed to operate as a cms. http://themeforest.net/category/wordpress I am using one to completely retool my website. They have very nice frameworks. Additionally, with page templates available you could use this framework as well. Justin does nice work. http://themehybrid.com/themes/hybrid hope that helps, Nigel
I use both. There are a lot of things Joomla can do in terms of arraigning data that WordPress can not. But WordPress is easier and there are more free valuable plug ins. If you learn how to use Pages AND Posts you can do a lot with WordPress making it look like a Static site. The first thing you'll need to do is find a really nice theme and go from there. There are plugins to help sort categories, and Pages. Very difficult to sort actual posts. There are plugins however that can make posts "sticky" on on top of the others. There are plugins to turn off the date/time stamp. Some of these things will require you to edit the template directly. If your site really need a lot of content and easy manipulation then just go with Joomla. My big gripe with Joomla is the Commenting just bites! And people like to comment.
I use wordpress for all of my affiliate sites and for most of my sites for clients. The learning curve for the average non-tech user to get into using wordpress as a CMS is quite high in my opinion. Joomla offers so much control as a CMS, but I find it really painful to get setup and design. Maybe I just need more practice. I believe there is a plugin for WP that adds a toolbar on the dashboard that has some nice large buttons that lead to the most common CMS tasks.
YOu know RocketTheme has Affinity, the same theme which was first released as Joomla, you can make the users think its joomla by editing the footer i guess xD
Many people use Joomla and Wordpress both. They put them in different folders on their hosting account. You do not have to choose between one or the other, you can have it all.