Help with site customisation please

(I was informed that I posted this in the wrong forum, and should of posted it here. My appologies)

Oy. From what I gather a codex of information that might of been helpful to me is no longer availible. (For the time being)

Simply, I was using greymatter for the longest time and was tired of spammers leaving me love notes. So, I scoured the net a bit and came accross many recommendations for this software. Everything as far as ease of install and use (posting) are great! However, customizing the way the blog funtions is still lost on me. Mainly, in the way to customize the site.

Here is the site as it stands:
http://www.theruse.net

Here is what it looked like:
http://test.theruse.net

I don’t really have any experience with PHP. Greymatter let’s you use HTML/SHTML/SSL/CSS stuff which I do understand.

Basically, it comes down to how can I use WP to it’s fullest (calendar, archives, pages, etc…) but with the style that I had.

I have tried to modify the default with no luck (As far as banners, and other images.) without it looking retarded. I also am having a problem as far as “Titles” of pages appear as “page_id” etc, and not what I thought they would be.

GM had a list of “calls” that you could use. Like {{logbody}} etc… I assume that WP is fundamentally the same.

The other option, of course, is to give up on WP and trying something easier since I don’t know a lick of PHP. Though, I really do like the “use” of WP as far as site management is concerned.

I know I maybe asking for a lot, but I could really use some help. ;_;

Thanks for your time,
-DR