Hello. I specialize in graphic design and development for web applications.
I know plenty of people who hate Wordpress. I’m not sure why, it’s very effective at what it does: allow you to write a blog. Wordpress was never developed to do complicated things like Drupal or Mambo. I’d even venture as far as to say Wordpress isn’t even a CMS. (It has pages, but they’re really not much more than posts without a date.)
Wordpress is really effective if you’re looking to create a blog, or something very similar to a blog. (We, for example, use Wordpress at ARSON-News.com.) If you want to create your own social networking site it’s going to be pretty hard, and it’s not the fault of the people at Automattic.
In conclusion, I leave you with what is probably the stupidest statement I’ve read about why Wordpress is bad:
“Wordpress, because it is designed as a blogging platform from the ground up, it doesn’t lend itself to people who want to build a website without a blog.”
Say your words!