By default, the homepage of any Joomla site is set up to display the following items:
One introductory article text over the full width of the mainbody
Three intro texts in three columns
As we haven't changed any of the homepage layout settings up to now, the example site homepage has the same layout.
This default setup is suited for many types of content-rich sites. But you're certainly not limited to displaying this one particular combination of intro texts and links in the central part of the home page (the "mainbody", as it is called in Joomla). There's a vast amount of choices on how to display content on the home page, and what to display.
It's your client on the phone, telling you that—happy as they are with their new site—some CORBA staff members find the home page layout too distracting. They don't like the newspaper look that displays the content columns in different widths. Would you be...