I'm a refugee from the now abandonware Sandvox, researching likely replacements. The three most likely candidates appear to be EverWeb, Sparkle, and blocs. I read through all the comments posted here and I was struck by the diversity of opinion. Clearly, a lot of people love EverWeb, but there are some strikingly nasty reviews. I suspect that those nasty reviews come from two sources.
The first is the angry customer. Some people get angry over the oddest things, and then they post "revenge reviews" that attack the product for every conceivable sin. Some angry customers are so mean-spirited that they post multiple nasty reviews using sock puppets. These are most readily identified by the repetition of a single uncommon statement. On this page, the people claiming that the positive reviews are posted by the developer are probably just one person using sock puppets.
Another common source of dissatisfaction is the techie-geek reaction to a product for civilians. EverWeb is obviously a product for nonprofessionals. It has less power than, say, Adobe Dreamweaver, but lacks the steep learning curve. These techie-geeks are the same people who insisted that MS-DOS was superior to GUI user interfaces. I have never understood why these people have to pee all over products for nonprofessionals. I've been programming for fifty years now, and I have forgotten more technical information than these kids know. I respect the tough trade-offs that a developer must make in juggling accessibility against power. Sadly, beginners accord far too much credence to professionals, and end up struggling with the most gawd-awfully inappropriate applications. That's how Windows ended up with a bigger user base than Mac. We're seeing the same thing going on here: professionals demeaning products meant for nonprofessionals. As an old pro with a lot more experience than those young pros, I urge readers to ignore the mud hurled by the young pros; they're just trying to show off how smart they are. If you're a non-professional, then you want to stay away from the professional products.
RapidWeaver is definitely NOT for non-professionals; I messed with it for a few years and then decided that I didn't have enough time in my life to dedicate myself to becoming a RapidWeaver expert. Yes, I've been using HTML and CSS for many years, but learning those languages is really only worthwhile if you use them at least once a week.
EverWeb appears to be the entry-level website builder. Lord knows we need one, and I worry when I see comments from the developer promising to add new features upon customer request. This is the path to software perdition. Every new design as a clear underlying vision reflected in its architecture. It's clean and simple. But then the developer starts getting requests from users and makes the fatal mistake of complying with those requests. The problem is, once you've put in a new feature, you can never remove it without provoking a storm of protest. So be very, very careful about the features you add! The worst mistake is to toss in some new feature with a simple design hack. The new feature doesn't align nicely with the original vision of the software, but it isn't too hard to bolt on to the existing framework, so what the hell-- the developer bolts it on. It's like sticking some external pipes onto a jet engine to give it a new feature. Sure, it works, but it ruins the aerodynamics of the engine. Over the decades I have seen so much software ruined by creeping featuritis. The history of MacWrite evolving into Mac Pages is a beautiful example. Sure, MacWrite needed to evolve, but along the way it picked up too many features and Mac Pages is now something of a design mess.
Anyway, Paul, I urge you to go back to square one, and begin every design meeting with an opening prayer: "Remember, it's ENTRY-LEVEL!!!!" Don't add features one by one; compile feature requests and, when the pile is big enough, sit down with the design team and work out a complete redesign that conforms to the core competitive advantage ("ENTRY LEVEL!!!") and fits everything together. Evaluate every feature request in terms of what game designers call the "color to dirt ratio" -- the amount of power the feature adds compared to additional steepness of the learning curve.
I conclude this lengthy screed with an appropriately fogey-ish "Harrumph!"