Emmamcsmith,
(Sorry in advance for the length of this post. Hopefully it will help.) I’m in your shoes. I’m moving to www.remarpro.com from Intuit – a totally drag and drop builder. I selected HostGator. Their support is fabulous and they will help you every step of the way with even the most basic things. I’m leaving my current site with my primary domain at Intuit and I registered a new domain for free at HostGator to use while I play around and learn WP. Once the new site is built, I’ll point my “real” domain to HostGator.
I’m not sure about the local install. I don’t find that necessary. Pick a theme you love and can really live with that will give you flexibility to get by without major coding changes.
My requirements were ones with lots of layout options, fit my company color palette, had customized sidebars (so I could have different sidebars on each page if I wanted to).
I hit one wall in two weeks. Found someone to help on https://www.elance.com for $10/hr.
Good luck!
