I am working on a custom homepage so you can safely force everyone to login but still customize the login page. So far I have 4 icon marketing spots and 3 featured content areas.
The login box is completely customized and has a custom image you can upload and display across the top. It includes error messages and everything the default login page contains.
Each featured content item includes a textbox and image.
The icons and text are all customizable as well.
This is the initial functional display. I still have a lot of styling to make it look good.
You can even turn this off and just use the default login page.