You rock, girlfriend. And obviously, no rush at all, take all the time you need.
A static phpBB page ... well, since you actually understand this stuff, I will quote verbatim from my Admin Control Panel, with highlights:
Content can be created using normal phpBB BBCodes, smilies and magic urls or you can enable HTML mode. In HTML mode, BBCodes, smilies and magic urls will not work, but you are free to use any valid HTML syntax. Please note that this content will be added to an existing HTML template, so you should not include DOCTYPE, HTML, BODY or HEAD tags. However, all other HTML formatting tags, including IFRAME, SCRIPT, STYLE, EMBED, VIDEO, etc. can be used.
Except nobody uses iframe, I don't know what they were thinking.
And script?
But otherwise, if you are willing to do the work, absolutely you can choose how to do it. If you use HTML, I can make it work (even JavaScript). If you use BBCodes and smilies, you can do it as a draft reply to a post and look at it as you work that way. Whatever you want to use as a workflow, I can deal.
The one thing I can't do (but I wish) is allow you to work directly on the page. That requires that you be a full administrator, and you don't need those headaches. Have you seen what they're doing to admins here?