Is gnus a good tool for me? How do I start?

[Marcin Borkowski]

Hello,

I am a medium-time (say, 10 years or so experience) Emacs user,
although I am neither a programmer or a computer scientist... I use
Emacs mainly for editing (La)TeX files, but I'd like to start using it
for email reading and writing, too. I could not find too many
introductory reading on the Gnus site, and that's why I'm asking here.
Feel free to tell me to RTFM in case I missed one;).

My questions are:
* Is it possible to use Gnus to write/read emails on a remote server,
using IMAP?
* Is it possible to use Gnus (possibly as a front-end only) to archive
emails in a local Maildir?
* If the answer to above questions was yes, what are the best
resources to read in order to be able to start using gnus as an email
client, without spending a year on learning elisp, specs of the imap
protocol etc – I'd prefer it to Just Work™ ;) ?

TIA
Marcin