Can I / should I try doing this with SMF?

[headspin]

Hi, I haven't done anything web-related in years, even though I was right there with C, Perl and CGI 10 years ago. Now I'd like to start a personal web site, and I'm not really sure if I can do what I want with software like SMF or maybe another type.

What I want is a way for me to post articles and have people respond to them - close to a blog. However...

* I'm not interested in an index page - the articles may make no sense when viewed in chronological order; I can write a page that lists them all in logical order, with links to the right pages.

* I want to have a view that only shows the article (and maybe a number of replies, click here to view) and never directly show the other forums or articles.

* Except for that forum which shouldn't typically be accessed directly (only for the main page) I still want to have other forums and give users the normal forum abilities - create threads, respond to each other in the threads or in PMs, etc.

Can I do this with SMF (or maybe with similar software)? Is there maybe some other type of software that's better suited to my needs?