I've selected a particular font and used bullets to list items, and while both applications work fine in the work space, neither appears on the web page. Other text features behave the same way in VISUAL mode; in fact, I seem to be limited to a single, boring type face that comes in only a handful of sizes, and seem only to be able use a fraction of the text features present on the toolbar.
Presentational features such as list bullets and font types are often set within your theme's stylesheet. You may have to edit this to allow your list bullets to appear.
Can you elaborate on how to access the style sheet? My web designer handed everything to me, insisting I'd be able to "do everything I needed" right in Word Press. Many thanks.
You can access your theme's stylesheet via Appearance/Edit. If you're not used to working with CSS, you might also want to review CSS.