Quick question here, can I dumb a folder of html pages into my joomla directory and point links to it. We had a html based site where we did this. Will this mess up the site.
By the time you've done all that (and the wrapper can be a bit hit & miss) you might as well have just copy & pasted the HTML pages into real Joomla content pages. In fact, install a component like Mass Content and you can create pages and pages of content in minutes.