I use the Recent Diaries box on my front page. You can find it over at the Scoop Box Exchange
But you probably want the user diaries in your center table. If all your users are going to be trusted, you could just lock down the perms on the user group and elevate everyone else to editors. That way they can still pick topics and categories, instead of all being diaries.
Also, as far as XLAN goes, I have had nothing but good experiences with them. But to do some serious Scoop work, you might need to upgrade to the Super account so you can get your own process.
