I love WordPress.  I use it for all my web sites.  Most hosting services offer it for free.  I manage three  primary WordPress sites.  My own blog, laketravislacrosse, and laketravisparents.

Below are plugins I recommend for WordPress

Members highly recommended for collaboration.
NextGen Gallary for simple photo management.  Can be used to rotate through images.  I use it to highlight VIP sponsors.
iFrame. WordPress doesn’t allow iFrames for security reasons.  This plugin supports iFrames which are necessary for embedding things such as a Google Form or PayPal buttons.
AWPCP for Classified Ads
Exclude Pages From Navigation.  I found this plugin searching how to remove pages that showed up in the Classifieds Menu created by the AWPCP plugin.   Previously, I had made pages private to keep them from showing up in the menu which is related to the theme I am using.  Now with this plugin I have better control of whether a page should be on a menu or not.