SRobbins1977, Looks like you found away to make it work. Whether the panoramic images are on purpose or not to be corrected size at that width it be your whole front page. I think if people wanted to use a fixed forum width of 1024 I can share the template with the sizes I made. Have two, one was the default layout (540) an other was (60,40) .
A point I wanted to make I noticed most didn't make a separate layout for their front page from the rest of the cms articles. If you make a new layout named "Front Page" an copy the format over to it an ad the slider on that layout so you can take it off the "Home" layout your using as the article default.
The template is the widget one you made in the CMS templates. The (60,40) width is configured to 735. The (540) widget size is 525, but the width is hard coded to 540. Didn't dare making it the variable as it's make a mess an need all resized. These are both for use an designed for a fixed width forum size of 1024 with the default template. Oh an guess it won't be an easy swap, there is also hard coded colors in these, dual grays (#dadada, #e1e1e1) used from the default theme. Both located near the top of the template. My forum is closed atm, but for a demo I modeled the look used at
http://www.superchevy.com/ only difference is gonna be the colors. Added note I made a layout to match their site also I wanna release soon