If when using query strings and the page always gets redirected to index.php change $config['uri_protocol'] to:
$config['uri_protocol'] = "ORIG_PATH_INFO";
I’ve looked around again at the different PHP frameworks hat exist and have found my new favourite: CodeIgniter.
I’ve tried using cakePHP before, and yes, it does have some pretty good documentation and does work well at some tasks like getting data out of your database very easily. I liked it, but could never get around the fact that all the database and MVC stuff had to conform to certain rules. CodeIgniter is a little bit different: you choose everything – do you want to use a database? Do you want to use a model? What do you want to call it?
I find the flexibility much better; Just enough abstraction to be useful, but not too much as to be more confusing than helpful. Documentation is brilliant, with near enough everything described in detail and there are plenty of very helpful tutorials around to get you started. Overall it’s fast, easy to use and has plenty of supporting libraries that make putting things together a doddle.