Great writeup. I'm curious, is there a way to find out how much Ellington costs other then contacting them directly? Can't seem to find anything about actually purchasing the source/system on their site.
I forget the exact numbers now, but I called them about it for my college paper and the numbers seemed pretty astronomical (at least, to a college student like myself) for a CMS. I was quoted an amount in the tens of thousands to license the source, and a still-hefty sum to have them host it.
A license fee in the tens of thousands is not much for a newspaper centric CMS. The big players in this field are often more expensive to license.
A 5-figure for full source is, in fact, quite ridiculous for a CMS in the same league as Vignette (nobody likes it, BTW) or FatWire.
With the added benefit of being 100% Java-free... Wow. It's a winner.