Migrating a database-driven site to Drupal

My website (http://www.sitesatlas.com) uses a primitive database-template system called DbtoWeb to create over 25,000 static pages locally. Since this is so cumbersome to manage, I would like to migrate to Drupal and take the opportunity to start a forum and use other features.

All the site's content is in a database already, from file names and page titles to text and images. Code snippets for ad banners, Google search, and Google Analytics are also included. Virtually all of the pages are created by plugging data from queries into the HTML templates. So I don't want a raw HTML import into Drupal -- that would break the link with my content database, which I will need for future changes and batch page creation. For example, my site has a page for virtually every city in the U.S. (see http://www.sitesatlas.com/Places/usa/PA/index.html for some examples); if I want to add updated data to each city's page in the future, I will need to maintain the link with the content database, where I have a table with a record for each city. Likewise, if I decide to create similar pages for Canadian cities in the future, I would like to be able to do that via the database as well. In other words, I need a solution that will either fully integrate my content into Drupal's database in such a way that I can continue to modify the content tables easily, or keep the content database separate and establish a connection between it and Drupal.

I am currently using a database with 30 tables and 20 queries for use with 25 templates that are mostly CSS with some HTML tables. To download a description of the database tables and template functions, as well as a ZIP file with a copy of all the templates, please see http://www.sitesatlas.com/Drupal/ . This should provide a comprehensive look at what is needed, though some last-minute changes are still being made. In almost all templates, the header and left sidebar are identical; only the main content and sometimes the right sidebar change. See http://www.endpoint.freeserve.co.uk/dbtoweb/index.html for information on the tags used. As you will see, the database is not conventional in that a number of fields are duplicated in other tables, but I hope that will not be a problem.

For this initial project, I would like to adapt the templates I currently use to make them work in Drupal, so no theming will be necessary. However, small changes in the templates will be needed to integrate the new modules and features I am interested in:
- site content search
- forum
- polls
- bookmark us
- social bookmarking (Digg, Del.icio.us, etc.)
- recommend this page to friends
- menu

I would also like to use the following Drupal features (those marked with an asterisk already appear in the database): URL aliases (will be included in database), Google sitemap, Google Analytics*, Google AdSense*, banner ads*, stats/reports.

My site is on a dedicated Cobalt RaQ4 server with PHP 4.1.2 with MySQL 3.23.39 installed. I may move to a different server, but if not, I will need to have Drupal installed, and PHP and MySQL upgraded to more recent versions. Most of the site will not change very frequently, so I would like to use extensive page caching to reduce the load on the server. Current site traffic is around 28,000 page views/day.

Candidate requirements:
- expertise in Drupal, PHP, and MySQL
- good skills in designing an efficient, functional and clean user interface.
- references and samples of previous work

Time frame: about 1 month, flexible.

Project budget: $500 - $2,000

Please contact Michael at mborop [at] gmail.com for more information or to bid on this project.