Well, its finally come together.  After a number of months of procrastination and investigation I've finally managed to find a provider with the look and functionality I need in a photography website. Of those I looked and trialled the decision came down determining the best of the following elements:

• to ease of use
• aesthetics of the templates and themes
• customisability of themes and elements in the pages
• a simple but functional design from an end users point of view
• quality and quantity of online support in the form of videos and articles regarding setup
• ability to set my own price lists
• integration of shopping carts and paypal
• ease of organising my photography
• mobile device and tablet compatibility
• blogging capabilities

After considering several of the popular photography site providers I decided upon Zenfolio. The  site was configured with the look I wanted, price lists created and photographs uploaded and organised all with 5 days left in my 14 day trial. While I do work in IT I'm pretty sure most photographers who can deal with Lightroom or Photoshop would be able to get up and running without to much assistance from Zenfolio themselves. Click on the image below to jump directly to the site.