I Want a New Blog

So, many of you might remember the debacle when I tried to set up WordPress as the new blogging system here on the site. It worked great... for about 2 minutes, then the sheer traffic this server gets overwhelmed it and made it cry for mercy. Ah, dynamic pages.

Anyway, in recent days, we've set up some server-side page cacheing that has alleviated pretty much all our problems. And I figured "hey, that means I can set up a new blog system and have it NOT kill things!" Well, I hit a snag. Seems the server-side cacheing plays hell with the pages making up the blog software - I was getting some really weird errors.

So what I'm trying to do is set up a system whereby the blog software is hosted on a completely different box entirely, (ads.reallifecomics.com in this case, though it really doesn't matter) and the actual Blog feed gets pulled down on THIS page. The server-side cacheing would load it up, pop it in the page, and all would be sexy. Except I CAN'T SEEM TO GET THE FRACKER TO WORK. And I can't get any help on the WordPress support site.

Now, I'm not married to WordPress by any means. I simply chose it because it's free, and it did what I need it to do. So if you know of a blog system that can do the same things, SEXY. I'll use it. Here's what I need it to be able to do:

• Let me type in plaintext, but display the actual post with extra formatting. (these handy-dandy little rant boxes)
• Display a different user picture depending on, well... the user.
• Display only the most recent days' worth of posts on the main page, but if a post has not been made in a few days, don't remove posts. (This one's weird...I'd have to think about how I want it to work.)

Basically, I'm at my wit's end. I just need something to work, and I'm giving myself a headache. I figured collectively, you guys probably know enough to help me out. Please help... I may go crazy soon otherwise.