I’ve been doing some testing tonight, and actually made the realization that the starter theme is not the way to go for me. The first suggestion of yours seem to give me what I’m after just as well, and with a lot less effort on my part in the next stages.
In response to my other questions though (referencing this: https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/bbp-single-forum-wont-work/#post-166535):
Surely, there’s got to be a way of displaying both the forum index AND other shortcode elements on the home page of the forum? Since it won’t allow me to do changes in wp-admin if I set a custom page as root, do I have to call the shortcode via PHP in my bbpress.php custom template file?
Also, I’d love the front page “Latest update” to permalink the latest post, not the topic. Difficult task?