Dont depend on databases to deliver static content, could be the lesson learned.

http://kephra.de/blog/Make_here_CMS.html <- shameless plug ;-)

This static site generator only requires make and bash. Being bilingual requires JS at the client, and the picture galleries are created by a 7 lines XSLT/PHP script under makefile control.

The great irony is you can now go read a very similar rant about what you, in turn, did wrong: http://eager.io/blog/build-static-websites

Still down.