Why yes there is I have been developing a solution like this for use as a People
Search functionality for our portal. What I did was set up the Profile
properties so that it connected to AD and downloaded the information  I wanted to
display. Once I have created or set up all of the profile properties I then
inititiated an import of the AD accounts. To do this you will need an account
that can connect to AD and download the accounts. Once you have done that you
can use either the Search Service or my personal favorite the search web service
to query the SharePoint DB and get back the information you are looking for. If
you would like I can send you some information and code snippets to get you
started.

Are you using 2003? There is a profile database that gets populated
form the AD when you add a user. You can extend the the database to
include more fields and map these to the existing AD fields. There are
also personalization objects in the SDK to access this information.

I wish I was using 2003! Unfortunately I'm just using 2001

Too bad - you should get you company to look at it.

Was there not an add on iFIlter in the res kit for 2001 that did a
people search in AD? I have not used it but might be a place to look.

Checkout the Index Active Directory Tool @
www.microsoft.com/.../default.asp#tools.

I haven't used it either.

I have no experience with any "SPSv1 integrated" active  Directory
user-information-display-feature :)

But, you can script the Active directory  using the ADSI or more proactively
using the DirectoryServices classes found in the .NET Framework. Our company has
made several customer solutions with more or less tight integration with the
corporate Active Directory. This includes both Group Management and "Phone-book
features".