So, seeing @donnacha brought up static sites, does anyone have an opinion on using WordPress to create static sites using one of these plugins:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/really-static/
http://wordpress.org/plugins/staticpress/

The ease of managing the site in WordPress, but with the performance of a true static site (above and beyond what a caching plugin will give you).

Not sure what I think of this approach, but it's interesting in the light of the comments above.