if you like WordPress you or your wife's cousing can have a look to Blogsome which enables you to modify templates for free (and for sure handling CSS in a more advanced way than I'm capable of) and make use of javascripts (IIRC) even if all the service it's based on an older release of WordPress MU than the one you use here everyday ...

{have a look to my friend's gustomela's blog to have a general idea of this CSS customization}

on the XML importing side I remember that there's something to help and prevent the error, but today has been a long day so you'll have to wait tomorrow 😀