Todd, I'm sorry that was confusing to you
Maybe this will make it clearer:
http://i38.servimg.com/u/f38/14/58/51/55/riverh10.jpg
This would be your page background created in Photoshop. Just one image, saved for web. Then in VSD you would click on Page Properties and choose that image for the page background. Insert your (optimized) logo and header image, put the copyright at the bottom, position the menu, then under Settings (top menu) you would choose this to be applied to all pages.
Now the entire page background can be under 40kb (depending on how much you compress it). The other advantage to setting it as a background is that it can't be accidentally moved since it's not an object. Then all you need to do is insert your optimized images per page and copy/paste your text.

Also - as Tom suggested, a text menu at the bottom would guarantee that all visitors could navigate the site.

I almost forgot this:
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/PhotoshopEl … 7_WIN.html