Hi Caroline.
If you have case studies from reputable places like NASA about why they're using OpenACS and how it's working out for them, that would make OpenACS more desirable in my eyes, sure. The links to .LRN also do that.
A related thing: I have the impression from reading a thread somewhere else in these forums (I think that is where I read that) that the installation of OpenACS takes about a day. Is that right? I really don't know how long it takes to do an install -- that would be valuable information to know, and putting it right at the top of the installation instructions would be helpful.
Also, if it really does take a day, maybe the installation instructions could explain why that is and why the installation can't be made to take, say, 15 minutes. Better still would be to make it actually take 15 minutes. I think the ideal situation would be for OpenACS to let you do really simple web sites like "hello world" in 15-60 minutes, and take more time to do more complicated things. If it really takes a day to install, then people like myself are going to perceive that as a big investment of time just to try something out. More than that and I am going to be very reluctant to try it out. I don't know if I am representative, but I hate screwing around installing stuff, so that plays a part too -- the longer it takes the more I hate it and the more likely I am to give up.