Text database

Hi, Would like to gather some feedback from the reader of this list. I am thinking of starting a project to build a "poor man"'s content management system and application architecture. Some preliminary description can be found at http://phratry.sourceforge.net/ Things are still at early planning stage. There are some questions that I am struggling with and would like to find feedback on. 1. Since it is a "poor man"'s CMS, should the lowest common denomination requirement be just PHP and text file or PHP and database (probably mySQL) 2. If the LCM is PHP/text file is there a database abstraction that deal with text and rdbms at the same time? I know perl have something like DBI where there are DBDs for text and usual databases. PHP don't seem to have something like this or did I miss out something? 3. Has anyone done or have pointers to such an abstraction? 4. In your opinion how accessible and usable is the PHP/MySQL combination to not so technically inclined people generally. Finally I'm inviting anyone interested to join me in this project. TIA and Ciao! Ken