That wasn't so bad after all. I got StyleCatcher working, found the most barebones template I could find, and punched in some sidebar modules. I've also opened up commenting again, although I couldn't quite figure out how to make the Akismet plugin automatically queue spam comments. (Or at least I'm not sure that it's working yet.
Anyway, not too bad. Might need to tighten up the padding on the post footers just a hair, though.