There are many opportunities for improvement with the standard News Feed RSS module.  When I was a member of the CT, we had targeted several improvements, including handling more in the way of auto-detection of news feed RSS versions.  That definitely is something worthwhile, and I agree that the current module is pretty basic and requires more than a cursory understanding of RSS and XSL to be useful for a lot of folks.  However, given the fact that the module has not really changed over the last version, it's not surprising that as RSS feeds became more popular that some would mature beyond the scope of basic implementation.

However, the basic module does allow customization using xsl, just as the HTML module would allow a more experienced web developer to get more out of it.  Now, the obvious point is to encourage anyone who has knowledge of RSS and programming ability to use it to further the scope and usefullness of the module for the rest of the DNN community.  That's always a good thing, and know that the CT would appreciate any helpful resources that would improve the module.  I don't have time at the moment to lend a hand in that regard, but eventually hope to get back to it. 

Basically, your point is well taken.

roseta,

Don't know if you ever got that newsfeed to work or not.  If you didn't, you can try using this xsl, which I used for testing this newsfeed on my dev DNNv4.0.2 box.  Copy and Paste to a file editor, save, then upload to your site.  Then, you can specify it for the xsl file in the news feed (rss) module.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<xsl:stylesheet exclude-result-prefixes="rdf rss l dc admin content xsl"
  version="1.0"  xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
                 xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
                  xmlns:rss="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/"
                 xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
                  xmlns:rss09="http://my.netscape.com/rdf/simple/0.9/"
      xmlns:feedburner="http://rssnamespace.org/feedburner/ext/1.0"
                xmlns:admin="http://webns.net/mvcb/"
                  xmlns:l="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/link/"
                  xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/">
<!-- moreRDF - a bit more advanced RDF stylesheet - Phil 'iwonder' Guerra -->
<xsl:output omit-xml-declaration="yes"/>
<xsl:template match="/rdf:RDF">
                <div>
                <xsl:apply-templates select="rss:channel" />
              </div>
      <div id="newslist">
            <xsl:apply-templates select="rss:item" />
    </div> <font size="1"><i>(iwonder moreRDF)</i></font>       </xsl:template>
        <xsl:template match="rss:channel">
                <xsl:variable name="link" select="rss:link"/>
                <xsl:variable name="description" select="rss:description"/>
                <xsl:variable name="image" select="/rdf:RDF/rss:image/rss:url"/>
                 <xsl:variable name="rightsPeriod" select="substring-before(dc:rights,',')"/>
                <xsl:variable name="rightsPhrase" select="substring-before(dc:rights,'All ')"/>
      <xsl:variable name="rightsOwner"  select="substring-after($rightsPhrase,', ')" />
               <xsl:if test="$image"> 
                       <a href="{$link}"><img src="{$image}" border="0"  /> </a>
                </xsl:if>
     <br/>
     <font size="3"><xsl:value-of select="rss:description" /></font><br/><br/>
     <xsl:value-of select="$rightsPeriod" /><br/>
     <xsl:value-of select="$rightsOwner" /><br/>
     <xsl:value-of select="substring-after(dc:rights,'Inc. ')" /><br/>
     Last Update: <xsl:value-of select="dc:date" />
                <hr/>
        </xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="rss:item">
           <font size="2"><b><xsl:value-of select="rss:title"/></b></font><br/>
    <font size="1"><b><xsl:value-of select="dc:creator" /></b><br/>
    Published: <xsl:value-of select="dc:date" /></font><br/><br/>
    <xsl:value-of select="rss:description" disable-output-escaping="yes" />
           <xsl:element name="a">
              <xsl:attribute name="href">
                  <xsl:apply-templates select="rss:link"/>
             </xsl:attribute><br/><br/>
     
       <font size="1">Click for details...</font>       
     </xsl:element><hr/>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>