Thanks for the suggestion, Tom, about using a background image for the pages. I did used a background for my sitemap but that page loads particularly slowly:

http://lcaero.com/Sitemap.html

All the links on the site map are images. If they were text, the page could load faster/smoother.
Going from VSD to Dreamweaver is a huge leap; even as a visual editor it expects you to know some basic html/css to figure out what you're trying to do. Get a free trial before you commit the big bucks to it! I find the CC HTML Editor much more intuitive to use than DW, but neither one is going to be anywhere as easy to learn/use as VSD.
Whatever you use, text instead of images of text will improve the flow, and give search engines something to "sniff out".