Thanks so much for the resource and feedback Mike...I have not looked into URL rewriting. I'll forward this on to our developer.
With the URL rewrites and 301 redirects, I wonder if there are any long-term negative implications for SEO as we will be building a large library of posts. Would it be better to leave /post/ in place without the URL rewrites and 301's? Trying to weigh the positives and negatives of one over the other.
This is a nice solution to our dilemma and we thank you