[support] Membership site question

[Bob Morse]

This seems like it should be easy but I am scratching my head. What 
module or group of modules would you folks suggest for a site that 
allows people to join the organization. I have two instances  now, one 
where they take online payments and one where they don't. On each one 
I've used civicrm. But it's such a beast. The inferface is clunky and 
neither organization uses the crm part. We're building a 3rd site, it's 
a chamber of commerce web site and don't want to use civicrm. They want 
to have a list of members in categories, be able to modify what shows up 
on the listing, make the listings searchable, allow people to join 
through the web site (not take payments for it but create a sign up form 
that calculates what they would have to pay by check or credit card). 
We're using version 6. We have something that works, but it took a lot 
more customizing things than I think it should for this kind of site. 
And if we're going to keep getting these kinds of jobs I like 
suggestions of any simpler ways. TIA!