Is a content manager a "must have"?

[sweetums]

Agreeing with all the smart folks that have already commented...eventually using a CMS in some capacity - even if its limited - becomes a necessity if you're running a network of paysites - unless you want to devote one person's full time efforts to coordinating and managing all content updates.

Comes down to what's the most effective way to be spending your time and where you get your biggest ROI - more people have automated the process of updating content in order to spend more time on things like traffic generation.