Separating Content Creation from Content Display

I am new to drupal development, but worked a little on TeamSite. Drupal seems very different from Teamsite, especially, because it also serves the content.
So essentially the same instance where editors create the content, is the one which serves the content to the users of the site.
We wanted to have separate drupal instance for editors where they can create the content, and then copy the content to drupal instance (presentation instance), which serves the content to users. The problem we are facing is that, there is no easy way to export the content and import it in separate drupal instance.
Anyone has experience of setting up drupal this way?
What are ways to import/export content and configuration in drupal?
I was having a look at Drupal Import/Export API
(http://cvs.drupal.org/viewvc.py/drupal/contributions/modules/importexpor...), But it doesn't seem to be under active development. Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Unmesh