Long listener, first time caller.
I've got a site which has 1000's of articles spread over at least 40 categories.  For lack of a better word, our site is basically functioning as a magazine site. 

Probable the biggest issue causing me to look at K2 is that I've not been able to find a component which can manage author profile pages and article list by author.

i was hoping that someone can share their experience with me with regards to the following questions:


with a site as large as our, does it make sense to try and get K2 set up in the background?
Can it be set up in the background without disrupting the existing site?
I read somewhere, that with K2, all the existing article with have to have their existing categories changed or the articles moved, is this true?
How steep is the learning to get this set up?
We currently make extensive use of the gavick news and slide show modules, will all of these be non-functional with k2?


Sorry for so many questions.

Thanks