Why not just ask them to estimate how much it will cost to change the layout for 600+ pages. And then ask them if they think their customer will pay for that, versus a designer using WordPress.
One important thing to point out is that Dreamweaver is a tool on your computer for creating the design. WordPress is a CMS for maintain content. You still need Dreamweaver (or whatever you like to write code in) to design new templates.
And ask them this:
Are they designers? Or web administrators? Because if a customer only want’s to add news articles, then he should not need a desigenr to to this.
Here is an example. Go to freyaolsen.com. This site is currently using static HTML.
Now, If I want to add a new news, I have to do the following:
- Add a new html page for the news page
- Change front page to display recent news
- Make sure that the 50 or so other news items have updated
also this monthsection
I don’t event use Dreamweaver for this, I use notepad!
And I’m not doing point 3 because a) it will cost to much for the customr and b) a dynamic site is on it’s way. Once dynamic, it will only take 10 minutes to write a new article and not the 4 hours updating each HTML page.
And what if I need to change the menu? Then I have to change the menu on every single page. And that is a lot of pages.
Another valid poiont is that if they focus on designing tempaltes, they will use less timne on each project, and thus have time for new projects.
case studies
I googled and found many case studies. Just look through them and see if you find one that is simple to follow.
Good luck.