If you really want to set something up which is easy to install and modify, easy to maintain, easy to enhance with modules (forum, instant message, e-mail, calendar, twitter, votings,....) and which has a proper user managemant and rights system you should use a wordpress page.
A "free" website - even based on templates - is way too much work to design, install and set up, espacially if you want to improve it later on or if you want to add features to it.
With a wordpress page you can almost do everything. Start with some basic features and a nice template with the possiblity of constant improving and adding content to the site. One of the biggest advantages of a wordpress page is it's sophisticated user rights system which enables users to contribute to the site on their own (like a wiki) and adding new content (for example in the newsfeed if they have the rights to do so.
I was part of a small team which set up the fanpage for the Obsidian Order of Eternity for PE which is also based on wordpress (in an i-frame). You can have a look here:
http://www.obsidianorderofeternity.net/(Lars did the coding for the basic page features and the menu bar and I made the design (based on a template) and the logos and added most of the content for example. The project was pretty much discontinued later on but you could still use it as an example for a proper set-up fanpage.)
And I would offer my skills to contribute to the project, but I don't have that much time atm.
