The current frontpage has hardcoded html in it. specifically in the index. It would be nice if those elements in the switch statement that then call the course/lib.php files could be moved to renderer.php for proper overriding. My current workaround is to comment out the <?php echo $OUTPUT->main_content() ?> with html comments (which still then does the processing) and write my own functions in the lib.php of the theme. This would help immensely with code organization and ease the upgrade procedure as well as reduce the processing time for the hack I have above.