[noms]

I think you don't even need to create an html catalog because Sphider indexes all the pages following the links, as search engines do... The beauty of it is that indexes all your content, not only the products catalogue! So results can contain static pages as well, or pdf documents (thus it make all the sense not having the results sortable by price or with images, but sortable by relevancy).

The real problem, as you said, is the amount of customization involved to use the store templates. I'm not very experienced with x-cart customizations, that's why I was asking if anyone succeeded with the integration... to evaluate if the effort is worth... (?)

I reckon integrating it can be extremely useful for anyone with attached documents, or simply to help lazy customers to find common answers (payment methods, etc...)