If I were to have a site that I knew will eventually turn into 100's or 1,000's of articles/pages, I would NOT go 'strictly' with XARA. I just believe it's not cut out for that, for so many reasons. But...
I WOULD do that long 'one page' - or even a 10 to 20 or so page site - that are the crux of the 'summary' information and 'branding' that link to all/any of the article on the blog. I trust Wordpress for
any amount of articles... and it's cross-referencing system is fantastic... And in the navigation, you could/would link back to the 'MAIN SITE' (Xara).

As far as your 'moderation and reply admin' concerns, just 'turn off' commenting in Wordpress. Now it's read only... Or... even in Wordpress you can create 'PAGES'... just like a regular site...
You can always, anywhere you wish link back to the Xara site to any specific pages or places you want or need to....

Bottom line... it's a great marriage... and as Acorn said... your ranking (when you have some) will not suffer... CONTENT CONTENT CONTENT (GOOD CONTENT) is the best SEO you can have these days...

And... let's say your Xara site is called... www.mywebsite.com... you can call the Wordpress site... www.mywebsiteblog.com or .info... You can become VERY creative with these two as 'partners' so to speak.

Cliff