Read the topic carefully before you post (Opensource + PHP/MySQL + CMS) 'cos if you dont, i cannot
guarantee your safety on this board.

This is not fair. All CMS are not created equal. And they have different functions

You cant compare CMS Made Simple with Joomla.

Maybe you need to come up with different categories (Blogging, Full-featured, extensible, gallery, community, lightweight, simple, or however you want to break it down.)

Not good to have an all in all evaluation.

BTW: My dream is to buy a Smart Car. Those little things rock

This post reminds me of a scene in what I deem the best kung fu movie of all time, Jet Li's "Fearless".  Ever since this scene, I have been looking at some things in life in a totally new way.  Oh, why can't we all think like this?

Paraphrasing (Scene: Where Jet Li is sitting at the table with the Japanese fighter, prior to their fight):

Tea is tea.  One type of tea doesn't look at the other and say, "I am better than you".  It is we humans who have ranked tea.  All tea is the same.  By drinking it we might come to discover that one might have certain traits but I see all tea as being the same.

Interpret the above as you wish.  For me, as I stated earlier, I stopped ranking things after this scene, which I have replayed over and over, at least 10 times 

One might be better than the other in a certain area and it is only through using it that we expose its strengths and weaknesses, but there is no "best" one. Also, until a poster has used *every* one out there, he/she can't make a *factual* decision regarding this. In other words, you can't use 3 or 4, for instance and claim you know which is better. Based on your experiences, yes but definitely not in general.

If you watch it again and zoom the screen, you will see that dhtml is tatooed on the chest of japanese fighter.

Ok, let me put it in another form, tell us the best cms/category for instance you can say: wordpress/blogging

Hmm, I think the best way to pose this is as cactus has suggested -
"Based on your experiences, what opensource/php/mysql/cms tool do you think is best and why do you say so?"

Then readers can make an informed decision based on posts. I guess the question also reminds me of the popular saying that when all you have is a hammer, everything becomes a nail to you.

Exactly yawa-ti-de, you are very good at echoing my thoughts. Maybe my handle on singlish is not very descriptive *or i hav been writin too mush codes*

If you watch it again and zoom the screen, you will see that dhtml is tatooed on the chest of japanese fighter.

No wonder!  I noticed it too but since I didn't (virtually) know you at the time, I couldn't make the connection 

Seriously though:

Based on my experience I would say:

CMS: Joomla!
1) It has won awards to that effect
2) It has a very low learning curve
3) It's admin panel is easy to use
4) Even non tech-savvy clients of mine have found it very easy to update as well
5) Plugins (may of which are free) are a plenty

For Shopping Cart: Opencart
Except #5, Same reasons as the above.  In fact, an initial look will make you think it is joomla!

I don't blog but based on what I have seen around, i would say wordpress.

I completely agree with your last post. I am still an average joomla user. And true, it has so much plugins that
i have not yet bothered myself with writing one, maybe unless i need it badly and i cant find it anywhere. . . .

CMS: JOOMLA

Reasons have already been mentioned by yawatide and in addition, i can write my own modules and php pages to be included.

Joomla is powerful true with all the extensions available. Then the risk factor comes into play. making sure things are compatible and no coding flaws in extensions. I guess many people writing extensions try to do their best to avoid flaws in the code that may lead to huge security vulnerability.

If i had a project that deals with building all the normal things like blog, gallery, shopping etc. I would most likely go the standalone approach. e.g.

Blog = wordpress
Gallery = zenphoto
cms = anything lightweight and clean

Then in this way, I can find solutions to modify the user tables to use single sign-on.

This is more work for customization and maintenance. Did this once before for personal use but since I am semi-retired from web dev. Any approach to building a solution would be carefully looked into depending on client needs. Ideally, I dont think I would do this for a client but it all varies on the type of client I have to work with.