I used to work in a large team of editors (doing some macros and software training on the side), and many of my colleagues would treat me as the unofficial help desk. I found that a large proportion of problems could be pinpointed with two simple questions: is it plugged in? Is it switched on? These are questions I ask myself when things go wrong for me, and guess what
Wordpress: it’s worth checking what WP has done to your .htaccess file. I don’t know exactly what happens to produce the "we’re offline" message from MODx, but I do know that WP permalinks make significant modifications to the .htacess file.
pkBlog: I’m working towards the real thing (PubKit) now, and aim to make the setup easier, taking comments from adopters into account. Hope to be publishing something this month (mind you, that’s what I was hoping last month and the month before...) I have no plans to become a video star, but I will try to make a readable manual!

KP