Okay, so between the Joe Brinkman series and a lot of luck, I've gotten a lot further than I thought I was going to be able to. So now I'm hitting actual questions !

For example, this website has both an English and a Romanian version. I know there's a built-in skin object for language localization - how do I implement this, though? Specifically, according to the www.thinkofdesign.com resource, it looks easy enough to put in a drop-down menu or a pair of flags. However, the design I got from the web-designer has a pair of links on opposite sides of the website, that are vaguely fancy looking. Suggestions?

Beyond that, what I'm working on is the menu - the design included a very stylized menu that I'm certain can be made, but a recommendation for a good resource or example or something would be useful, if anyone has any good links.

Thank you!

Dnn 5.6.2 has an inbuilt localization system - - u turn on localization in the system settings and setup the language template for the new language - in the language section. If the localization skin object is on your skin it will become active and show flages or a dropdown depending on what you have set.

There is some good info on the system here http://www.dotnetnuke.com/Resources/LanguagePacks/tabid/933/Default.aspx

As for how to implement multiple flags and such - once localization is active - it would be easy to setup your own flag buttons as links instead of using the default skin object,
Its really just a matter of making the flag link back to the same page with a Language parameter.

Say for example you are on you HOME page:
www.dnnwerk.de/Home/tabid/38/Language/de-DE/Default.aspx

A link click on that page that does this 
www.dnnwerk.de/Home/tabid/38/Language/de-DE/Default.aspx would change to german version
www.dnnwerk.de/Home/tabid/38/Language/de-DE/Default.aspx would change to english version

Would be relatively easy with a couple of lines of Javascript to set the flag links appropriately at run time yourself.

As for the menu - well - where to start on that one I guess.

While the dnn menu is very functional working with it can be somewhat of an arcane art.  
There are a couple of 3rd part menus that may provide a better starting place:

http://dnn-menu.com/help/GetStarted.aspx ---  free and one of the nicer experience that the core

The other option and maybe the better one long term is DDRMenu http://www.dnngarden.com/
 - which is also great AND has one major bonus up its sleeve.
When DNN 6.0 is released it will come with DDRMenu installed by default as the new core menu system.

Both work with template based systems and have a good set of examples

Westa