1. First, open SPD and open the News site's Pages library.
2. Create a new ASPX page.
3. Insert a web part zone.
4. Insert a DataForm web part.
5. View the library's data source.
6. Drag the data elements I needed to the page (Title, Rollup Image, Description, URL Path).
7. Added the site's CSS to the page's HEAD section manually (<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/[file name].css" />)

Here's where you need to configure your design's look and feel.  For me, I wanted 6 items to appear (2 columns of 3).  I selected "Change Layout" from the common tasks menu and found the closest match.  I moved some elements around in the template until I was happy with it.  Then, I limited my paging to 6 results.  I set the filter to "Content Type Equals 'Article Page' or Content Type Equals 'Redirect Page'".  Since my blank page, the archive page, and default page don't have those content types, they won't appear in my new page (or the iframe).

I added an iframe to the homepage with a content editor web part. 

<iframe src="/News/Pages/NewArticles.aspx" height="200px" width="100%" frameborder=0 scrolling=no></iframe>

Because I was using an iframe, I needed to make sure that none of my links would trigger navigation inside the frame.  I went back to SPD and wrapped my titles like this:

<a href="{@FileRef}" target="_top"><xsl:value-of select="@Title" /></a>

I noticed that my rollup images were using the URL provided in the rollup image form, so I changed my forms to leave the URL area of the rollup image dialog blank and wrapped the rollup images as well (if you don't blank out the URL, the wrapped href won't work):

<a href="{@FileRef}" target="_top"><xsl:value-of select="@PublishingRollupImage" disable-output-escaping="yes" /></a>

I cleaned up my webparts (minimized chroming on the new page and set a nice title on the homepage) and published.  It looks just like a 2-column Summarized Link web part but it's all dynamic.  I can forsee using a lot more Redirect Pages in the News site for quick updates.

The only thing that doesn't work *exactly* as I'd like is the iframe height.  For some reason, the web part doesn't want to resize appropriately so I had to set the height to 200.  I suppose if I get enough long-winded descriptions in the result set, I may have to poke back into the content editor web part and increase that.  If anyone knows exactly what that's happening, drop me a comment or IM.