My Route 50 homepage design, drawn on Dia diagram editor.

On the top, it's the huge version of the Route 50 logo and a tagline to introduce new users to Route 50.

The "Portal" logo consists of a "Route 50" sign, blue sky, and some special effects, like the header image.
The "Portal" logo has a top-down opacity gradient to blend into the page body, which has a white background.

The header image should be removed in the Home if possible, because the "Portal" logo may repeat it.

There are two boxes on the top-right.

A semi-transparent box was on the top-right, which either shows a random poll or a random galley submission.

In the Random Poll, the poll title and the options are shown, click "Vote" to vote. The Vote button is AJAX, that means, after you voted it, the results shows for a period of time (preferably, 10 seconds), then the next poll shows up, this keeps the user voting for more.

The "random" selection should count every polls or entries, this resurrects the dead content.

If the user is not logged in, then the Random Poll/Submission box will become the Register/Log In box.

The another box below shows the list of affiliations.

The main body of the homepage has 6 boxes, each box presents the different information to the user.
Please note the box border, border-radius and background-color's are not finalized, (the Route 50's current color scheme is brighter than the shown) and also, the font sizes and the heights of the boxes are not to scale, neither do the icons (and the icon placeholders) are finalized.

To keep the user updated quickly, the "What's Happening" and the "Announcement" box are on the top.

In the next two boxes, they present the user contents, whichever popular or newly-created. The contents are grouped by 4 tabs, "Forum", "Polls", "Gallery", "Drawings". The tab switches automatically for every 10 seconds, unless the user hovers/clicks/focuses the box.

The Forum and Polls tabs are viewed like a detailed list, while the Gallery and Drawings tabs have two views: Slideshow and Grid.

Last, the two boxes on the bottom are "The Feed" and "Personal".

"The Feed" is like before, and "Personal" allows the user to deal with the notifications, the messages and (maybe) the tickets quickly, I think most people enter Route 50 through the homepage, so that can be convenient.

There should be an option to move "Personal" box to the top, through a "Rearrange" button.