Thread:Project:Support desk/General setup advice needed

Hi, I plan to open up a site halfway between wiki and blogging, possibly using MediaWiki.

My current problem is to determine if this is the correct platform to use and, if this proves to be the case, what extensions I should include.

Here is a provisional list of what I need to do:
 * Content will be highly organized, like a book or a manual; I'm not writing independent entries.
 * Content will be mostly text, with a few pictures and with heavy usage of lists/tables.
 * Chapters may not be written in sequence, but should appear in logical order, possibly with a TOC-like menu on the left hand. It should be possible to insert a new entry in any point of TOC, not just at the end; hyerarchical TOC would be a "nice to have".
 * Content will have a large amount of hyperlinks either to short footnotes (e.g.: bibliograpic notes) or more sizeable pages (either in the regular flow as detailed in TOC or standalone).
 * Content shouldn't be directly modifiable by readers (it's not really a wiki; I will be personally responsible of what gets into "Content").
 * Commenting, either global or on single sections, is encouraged and I plan to respond to most (all?) comments.
 * Reading of all pages (Content and Comment) should be open, but I would like to forche whoever whishes to leave comments to register (mainly as a deterrent to spam).
 * Comments should be somewhat separate from entry, possibly in a "Discussion" page attached to entry itself (something similar to Wikipedia setup).
 * In case I decide to edit entry in response to some user comment there should be a way to link the relevant part to the comment thread.
 * There will be a fair amount of bibliograhic and explanatory footnotes (in the style of academic papers).
 * It should be possible to navigate sections either using the TOC menu or simply via [Next]/[Prev] buttons (beside the normal internal hyperlinking).

I assume all this can be done, but it's unclear to me if I'm straining boundaries of the tool and I'd be better off chosing something different (e.g.: WordPress).

I would like to use some ready-to-go solution; I installed the basic package, but then I got lost in the sheer amount of customization available.

I need some guidance before i spend too much time running in circles.

Can someone point me in the right direction, please?