I'd question the cheesy aspect personally. None of the scripts are ever going to be implemented as is. Is it just the layout? colour? fonts? If so, you can change that really easily using css stylesheets.
I looked at the example site and it looks like a relatively straightforward project so I'd be inclined to encourage you to give it a bash yourself. One of my first projects was a guestbook (never went live but I learnt alot) and that sorted guestbook entries by a date, name etc. It eventually morphed into a software development bug tracking system but could easily have turned into a document management system also.
let me know if you need help.
Sarah
