5
kdollar,
Just to be clear, are you asking about the urls, which is what I think hyperpod is referencing, or the fact that the front page of the site has several blocks above the news? Depending on what you are asking, the answer may be different. You could do a front page with blocks for news, comments, forum posts, etc similar to the XOOPS site, which as you have no doubt noticed, does not have the simplified urls. Yet it has all those features. It would have similar effect, just without the nice urls.
But, as hyperpod has pointed out, xoops-tips has directed the news module to be the front page via the black arts of mod-rewrite. So, really, what is it you want? If you want the front page to be just a bunch of blocks with recent content, etc. that's easily done without mod-rewrite (and nice urls). If you want yours set up exactly as xoops-tips, they'll have to give up the secret...
But, then again, I'm open to further education...
MMM...It tastes like chicken! ...