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Mithrandir:
Remember Solomon said there's nothing new under the sun... However, I'd like to add that I'd love the News module to feature multicolumn formats controlled from the admin side, instead of fixed in the template.
If you take a look at Spotlight, it includes such an option: you can choose between a "pile" or a "side-by-side" version of the components of the block. Depending on the value of this config item, the template shows a different version of the block.
This makes templates bigger, of course, but not so much that it will affect performance, and there's of course the fact that once loaded the first time, the template will reside in cache.
Cheers.