First of all, get familiar with B2Evo, and how the skins work. The new 2.4x versions make skinning fast and relatively simple(in comparison to old version). When you are comfortable, go ahead and make the skin looking the same as your website. That way you are in control of the CSS the whole way, you decide what goes where, including posts, archives, links, whatever.
The right includes files just need to be called, and you can work magic.

First, thanks for the reply.

So the best thing would be to create a new "skin 2.0"? Not to try and use a stub file to include the news section into my .php page?

I have several questions about the skins after reading the http://manual.b2evolution.net/Skins_2.0 page. Most importantly is the meaning of the $disp column of the table under the Main Display section of this page. I assume that $disp indicates the way certain pieces of the page are displayed and/or layed out on the main page. I didn't see anywhere that they actually explain what each one is for. I can only guess that:

'arcdir' is for the display of the list of archived articles? Or is it the articles themselves? 'catdir' is for the display of the list of categories that visitors may choose from? 'comments' is for the display of any comments on the articles entered by visitors? 'feedback-popup' is for the display of the...? I have no idea other than it's for photos in some way. 'mediaidx' is for the display of...? The photos themselves? 'msgform' is for the display of the form for emailing posters and the admin? 'page' is for the display...? I assume it can't be for the entire page in general because that's what index.main.php does. 'posts' is for the display of the list of articles? 'profile' is for the display of the list of any avatars and such? 'single' is for the display of a single news article? 'subs' is for the display of...?[/list:u] I think I understand the Disp Templates section. It seems that rather than mucking about with the re-coding of the index.main.php file of a template whose layout I like, I can alter the layout of the individual pieces of the page to suit my liking? The Include Files section has me flumoxed and makes me wonder if I was right about my previous assumptions. It says that you can include common header and footer include files in the Main and Disp templates. You mean I can have a _body_header.inc.php file inside my _arcdir.disp.php file? Or do they mean as part of the index.main.php page? And why bother telling me this and suggesting that I name any header/footer files as listed? Can't I throw any old name for a header or footer into the file and call it myself? I won't even worry about the Styling Widgets section for now. Any advice or guides to creating skins would be appreciated! Thanks, Jeff