CMS - phpbb integrations

[Master_Cylinder]

I'm starting development on a new project and before I get too deep I thought I'd seek some input.

It's basically a product/service review site with forums. Manufacturers send me products or request secret service reviews, I review it and forum members can discuss products, ask for help/advice, etc.

My first thought was to use a modified/themed wordpress install and use an integration plugin for phpbb but maybe wp is overkill. The nice thing about using wp is that it's similar to phpbb in that there are many themes and plugins available. Still I know there are other options. Joomla, phpnuke, drupal, etc...

So the question is: how would you guys do it?

TIA...

[Kamahl19]

I wrote my own little CMS for phpbb. You create category Articles with forums for example Cars, Bikes, Motorbikes. In fact, those forums are categories like in WP. Then I created 2 files, one for displying list of last articles and another to display full article and comments. It all works on phpbb forums/topics/posts but it looks like WP. You can see it for example here: http://acs.cz/clanky.php On the left there are 7 categories for articles. You can also open article to write and see comments http://acs.cz/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=564&c=1

[Master_Cylinder]

I guess rolling a custom CMS could be done but I'd have to hire a web designer/programmer since that's not my skill set. I'm more of systems/server/network admin/engineer. I never bothered to learn programming and I haven't built a website in nearly 15-20 years and those were almost pure html.

What I had in mind for the reviews was something that look more like these themes:
http://wp-critique.solostreamsites.com/
http://templatic.com/demos/reviews/
http://wordpressreviewtheme.com/golf/

My budget is limited so I doubt that I could afford a custom cms, web/template design and graphics...unless I went someplace like rent-a-coder but I guess any CMS can be modified for virtually any look that I want. I figured that I could just get a free or cheap wp theme that's close to what I want and modify it...or have it modified if I can't figure it out. *shrug*

Thanks for the input though, I'll have to think about that; let's see what other people suggest...

[Mess]

If you want simple and free you could look at board3 portal. I'm not sure if thats what you are looking for though.