How do I, uh, use Sharepoint?

There is definitely a zen to implementing SharePoint in terms of understanding what the product is capable of, how these capabilities are exposed to the end-user (not always intuitively), and how the functionality maps to your needs. In terms of installing the product are you trying to run MOSS or WSS? Are you using SQL Server or SQL Server express. Using domain or local accounts? You've probably seen it, but here's a link to the http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc298924(TechNet.10).aspx. I think you will experience the "comes just, oh so close to doing something cool, but always just fails short" on nearly any software platform you choose to work with. Without knowing the specifics I would guess you would be able to fill in the gaps by using SharePoint's object model. The entire MOSS product is extensible via the fairly well documented object model (web parts, site definitions, custom policies, workflows, etc. etc.). Or are you looking for more out of the box types of customizations like creating custom lists. Customizing the look and feel is also relatively easy and http://www.heathersolomon.com/blog/articles/sp2007.aspx runs a blog that is a great place to start down that path. I would suggest, once you get it installed is to spin up a blank site and add a document library (for document sharing), an event list (for calendar) and a task list. You have the option to set permissions on each of these different items if that is relevant for your needs. If you need to spin up more sites like this in the future, you can save the site that you've modified as a template. Its a huge product that is wildly customizable but it comes at a cost - steep learning curve, and the willingness to work within the architecture the development team has implemented. I'm also available by mefi mail should you have any specific questions.

In my experience, Sharepoint is a bad product. Or, maybe as you put it, "not ready for prime time". My personal recommendation for a paid product would be Lotus Notes/Domino (although, that'll take some work to maintain). For a free product, I've heard some good things about dotProject, and about XOOPS with the "Smarted" project module (both of which are PHP). ( Disclosure: Notes/Domino is what I do for a living, I may be biased. That doesn't make Sharepoint any better. :) )

The key with Sharepoint is to understand the basic features it offers (workspaces, shared documents, homepages, etc) and really identify if you need those things. Don't just dump it all over your users and tell them to go nuts with all the features. Keep the cart behind the horse, so to speak. Also make sure you plan your database backups properly. Sharepoint is a messy can of worms, so be careful when opening it.

I tried over several weeks to use SharePoint for some of my documents. It was an extremely frustrating experience. It actively worked against me trying to make something as simple as an unordered list. I've since started using http://trac.edgewall.org/, especially the Wiki component of it, for some of the smaller projects. This doesn't have the benefit of tying automatically in with your Active Directory (you'd have to let the web server handle it, which is certainly possible), but it has the benefit of actually being useful.

As someone that does SharePoint things for living (and in the past Lotus/Domino) things, there are real pro and cons to all of these things. SharePoint has a lot of power in its out of the box, Web UI so I would focus on getting the functionality that you want down. Do you want to share documents with end user settable alerts? Do you want to be able to create ad hoc lists for keeping project data in one place? Do you want to use it as dashboard to other sites and services? etc. Nail that down to see if SharePoint will work for you. Customizing the UI or the functionality of the product has a steeper learning curve than some other technologies (Notes/Domino included). And regardless of what you choose, having a sound, tested backup process is well advised.

You're absolutely correct - Sharepoint is a gigantic pile of crap.

Design is indeed a real issue with Sharepoint. I created some icons and workarounds to get a Sharepoint site to look nice, but it required so many workarounds and non-intuitive fixes that the whole site is held together with duct tape and cat hair. If I'm not around to make changes, they do not get done properly. MOSS is, ostensibly, somewhat better. However, it is still seriously ugly.

I would seriously consider this as an alternative: http://www.dotnetnuke.com/ SharePoint sucks. I worked as a consultant for a company that was sold on SharePoint's ability to create custom designed websites. The project tanked, despite large amounts of funding. In retrospect, we would have been a lot better off using dot net nuke.

If for some mad reason you're thinking of using it as a CMS rather than as a document store/portal then I'd follow Xammerboys advice - it's CMS capabilities come from having MS CMS rolled into it, and I found that to be a pretty terrible product even when it wasn;t bolted onto the side of Sharepoint. I suspect you want more of a document store/portal from it though if you're looking at basecamp as an alternative.