This is a good base to work on. And I understand that your goal is to find a way to make the front page more friendly to the first two categories, and to "hook" them convincingly. and i support that goal, obviously.

One idea I'm throwing here would be to have a box (maybe called "resources") with a small number of items, which would link to specific pages - either a diary if a comprehensive one already exists (like the one on the French economy written with afew), or a series of selected diaries, ideally with a short summary there. I can think of the following headline topics (in bold a shorter selection)

    + on European energy
    + on relations with Russia
    + on Iran
    + on NATO and Atlanticism
    + on the Anglo Disease
    + on "reform"
    + on bubbles Greenspan
    + on Peak Oil
    + on energy technology
    + on inequality
    + on unions
    + on object blogging (train, clock, bridge, wind farms)
    + on the European Union
    + on the media
    + on election coverage
    + on sustainability

(not a preferred list, or a complete one, just things that come to my mind and presumably reflect my interests rather than that of the whole community for now, so to be updated)

A separate box could be the one suggested by linca above, with the same for topics of more interest to the community (photoblogging, etc...)