[prog] shopping cart/storefront advice

[April]

Time to try one of those questions I hinted at :)

I'm putting together an ecommerce site (for fun and learning as much as 
anything practical), and am faced with some decisions on the cart.  I 
only intend to accept payment through paypal, and will have to manually 
process every transaction before shopping, so security isn't much of a 
concern.  The problem is, I'm adamant that it can't "look like a 
shopping cart".  I'll need the normal buy/cart buttons, but I'm going to 
want more pictures, layout control, and search engine optimization than 
any catalogue system is likely to offer.

I've installed oscommerce and poked around some.  It has a ton of great 
features which would be nifty, but I don't NEED...  It has even more 
features I"ll never use...  It has some featuers I'll need yet confuse 
me (mostly due to lack of retail experience)...  And it has plenty of 
features I downright don't want, such as customer reviews, manufacturer 
lists, different currencies, etc.  I'm scared I'll sink dozens of hours 
into customizing the includes, only to discover that I can't remove or 
change something I think looks horrible.

In my Windows experience, the above formula is a recipe for disaster.  
I'd like to hear some pearls of wisdom if anyone has any.  Would other 
storefronts be better?  Since I can make due without the catalogue, and 
can write PHP (just not textbook worthy PHP), are there some shopping 
cart scripts that I can plug into a catalogue I write myself?  Would I 
miss the oscommerce features if I didn't have them, or will I rue the 
day I commit to using them?

Thanks for any help anyone can give,
April