How can I get both "body" and "summary" fields to appear in a new article? I'm defining a Drupal 7 content type using the "long text and summary" field.  When a new story is created, I'd like both the "summary" and "body" text fields to be present in the creation form, instead of making the user click the "edit summary" link.  Is there a way to do this through the basic Drupal content type tools (I've looked, but can't find anything), or do I need to write a hook_form_alter handler or something comparable for the content type?  Thanks!
I think you'll have to do it in a form alter hook as you suggest, I don't know of a way to do it in the UI.

Looking at the code for text summary fields the "Edit Summary" link and functionality are done completely through javascript, added in the form by setting an #attached property on the element, which includes a JS file (modules/field/modules/text/text.js).

All that JS file does is add that "Edit Summary" link so it would be completely safe to just get rid of it. This example uses the standard page content type:

function mymodule_form_page_node_form_alter(&amp;$form, &amp;$form_state, $form_id) {
  unset($form['body'][LANGUAGE_NONE][0]['summary']['#attached']);
}