Sandbox

Q. Is it possible to change the maximum number of items on the frontpage?

A. Yes
In the Joomla Adminstrator (back-end) take a look at the Home page parameters here:
From the admin top menu:  Menu > mainmenu > Home > Parameters

Lots of lovely parameters . . .

- # Leading - this is the number of items to display as full-width leading articles at the top of the page

- # Intro - this is the number of items to display just the under the Leading items with the intro text displayed

- Columns - number of columns to display the Intro items

- # Links - number of items to display as links

There is also this E-zine news component which is a replacement for your frontpage component with the following options in the backend:

Image for category title (URL)? 
Image for `More category news` link (URL)? 
Order news by? 
How many intro to display? 
How many link to display? 
Display intro with image? 
Display link with image? 
How many column to arrange news to? 
Display only news marked to show in frontpage? 
Display full news or intro only?

Check it out here: http://mamboforge.net/projects/mambonews/