You have to consider more than just the general opinion for this one. Reason being: if your targeted group of website visitors focuses upon an older generation you definitely want to go more towards usability. Same of course applies for inexperienced users.
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It is premature to say that it would cost a buffalo nickel or a fortune because there are too many dependencies involved. 
Some of them will include:
Whether or not the platform can be open source which will determine a tremendous amount of the projects costs. 
Is there really a need for a content management system involved at all or is the content static? Minor changes can be done to a website for a rediculous amount of money and if this specific company has a change every half a year and the implementation of an enterprise level CMS (regardless if open source or not) can really lead to some sleepless nights. 
You probably get my point. You really have to work down a pretty individual catalogue before you even go to stage two of the project. 
If you need my help please feel free to call me.

QUESTION

Portal technology, according to specs like JSR 168 and 286, is difficult and needs a lot of overhead to develop web applications. The arguments to chose the technology often include the words integration, SOA, personalization, federation and scalability. But are these reasons strong enough to overcome the development hurdles? Or should we just accept that serious portal frameworks from IBM / BEA / Oracle are just meant for the big Enterprises who have a strategy that will allow them to invest millions each year in portal development?

ANSWER

Yet the MOST important question when it comes to CMSs is: “What IF the system we utilize is stomped in?” This is the most tricky question out there because migration and data mining efforts to move 1000s of pages of content can quickly go into the 100ks and lead to a system the company will stick to for several years, improvising the living hell out of the thing, making it vulnerable and totally exposed. Same applies for intranet and knowledge management solutions.

But to go back to your question… Yes, it most definitly is. Not only is the rights management of the publishers worth it. But also considder the fact that creating a new page means a bigger hassle in standard programming. Furthermore, you face issues like SEO, accessibility, etc. etc. that you have to review on every single page while a CMS takes care of that for you through the framework.If you need more help please feel free to call me. I have pointed out my international phone numbers in the bottom.