You can write webpart which in turn makes use of the SPPS object model to
figure out the top five documents from the doc lib, based on age. Your users
can simply add this webpart to their page.

This is not a simple task because the ability to show the most recent
documents modified or added is not a native functionality to sharepoint.
Yes, you can create a complex Topic structure and upload your documents
there if you wish, but you'll need to do that out of a document  library
sitting in a WSS site.

My fear is that due to factors beyond your control you're rushing into
this solution hoping that 2003 will do what you need it to do without
really learning what the product *can* do. I say this with all respect
to your efforts and understanding that there are political demands in
every organization that will force your hand into a new technology
without really know the technology well.

If at all possible, I'd suggest that you stall using 2003, come to my
summit or the training offered by sharepoint  Solutions, then take a long
look at what you want to do an see how SPS can help you.

Why couldn't you create a custom view for the document  library
specifying a sort order of creation date and limit the view to a
certain number of documents (i.e. 3 most recent)? This is a built in
feature so I'm just trying to understand if you just aren't aware of
it or if I have misinterpreted your question.