It was hard to find this stuff. I'm a little snagged on it right now, but might as well make a useful record of where the codes are to do everything:

Custom regions: at first, seemed to be the key. how to make em: http://drupal.org/node/29139
More about it: http://cmsproducer.com/configuring-drupal-theme-templates-content-region...
Making a new sidebar or other areas: http://drupal.org/node/150177
How to make the direct call to a node, from a .tpl.php : http://api.drupal.org/api/function/node_view
This plugin nodeasblock can be handy: http://drupal.org/project/nodeasblock
but is still too gunky for the front page. how to format it: http://drupal.org/node/123810

Override the rendering of a node (hiding the pesky links): http://drupal.org/node/107712 can be in PHP conditional schemes i think
How to render the bits of a node specially: http://drupal.org/node/141458
How to call $vars from a node object: http://drupal.org/node/110845