Getting latest node to display as front page
Your best bet is to use Views and attach a PAGE format. Then for display format: "full content". Its not overkill since your page would be cached anyways. But if your really not keen on using views, your best bet is to create a new tpl file for your theme and gear it towards the frontpage via: node--front.tpl.php (not sure if it was like that, but google it) Then return the latest node filtered by content type.