I had users divide a list of pages on the site in categories of their own, and then chose the best categories from those. After watching a few users use the site, it turned out they would start using the sitemap intensely after discovering it. They also used the links in the body of the text a lot, which aren't being tracked so far, so I don't have statistics on those yet. In an email, I asked John Rhodes what he thought about this. Navigation is so very important.
Good navigation is often much better for users than using a search mechanism.
This is true for just about any size site. Second, since the site is relative small, this is an effective method of navigation. However, I should note that this style would probably only work on small to medium sized sites. Third, it doesn't matter that the sitemap is at the bottom of the page, particularly if you have repeat visitors. People learn very fast to use navigation if they can find it .