Tom,
I have several old (pre-FW4) sites that are several hundred pages each. A re-design is not feasible for them either, but they need simple annual updates. My plan is to keep an old computer that is capable of running FW 5.5. I’ve updated these old sites to 5.5 and I will leave them there. For any new work, I will use FW 7 or whatever I will start using when I determine a FW replacement. If keeping an old computer is not feasible, a clone backup is an option. I did this recently when I made the jump from Snow Leopard to El Capitan. That is my “long range plan” as best I have it and I suspect it will get me several years down the road with these legacy sites.
I think someone might have mentioned it, but Pinegrow is an app that several on this thread are talking about. Nothing will open your .freeway sites but Freeway, but several apps can open your .html sites. From what I can tell, your “easiest and quickest” alternative is to get FW running. Something like Pinegrow might be great if you just want to make a couple of quick text changes, but I’m not sure I’d want to do a major overhaul with it. For me, it would make more sense to start over from scratch.
As far as FW 7 being more “stable” than 4 or 5, I’m not sure I would say that. I never felt like the earlier versions were particularly unstable. Sure, every app crashes now and again, but careful saving and disciplined use of backups always worked fine for me. The biggest advantage of the later versions of FW is what they did with responsive design. I don’t think that’s something you really care to tackle right now. Have you considered picking up a copy of FW 5 off of Amazon? You won’t be able to upgrade it, but it would probably get you out of the current bind you are in. Just a note, as I remember, there was a significant stability increase moving from FW 5.0-5.5 — just something to keep in mind as you look at versions.
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