update the front page documentation

[ctb]

Clarity / friendliness updates. Somewhat responsive to #853.

[ctb]

• Is it mergeable?
• Did it pass the tests?
• If it introduces new functionality in scripts/ is it tested?
  Check for code coverage with make clean diff-cover
• Is it well formatted? Look at make pep8, make diff_pylint_report,
  make cppcheck, and make doc output. Use make format and manual
  fixing as needed.
• Did it change the command-line interface? Only additions are allowed
  without a major version increment. Changing file formats also requires a
  major version number increment.
• Is it documented in the ChangeLog?
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changelog#Format
• Was a spellchecker run on the source code and documentation after
  changes were made?
• Do the changes respect streaming IO? (Are they
  tested for streaming IO?)
• Is the Copyright year up to date?

[ctb]

ready for review and merge @mr-c

[mr-c]

LGTM. There was an existing CSS error that I've fixed.

[mr-c]

Thanks!