In what context? Are you just trying to create a new list  view, present
data in DVWP, or something else?

Remember, lists  don't "look like" anything; they're just collections of
information.

I want to use lists  to populate certain features on a
public facing site without them looking like a list, say for instance use a link
list to populate a footer stacked two rows, the title populates the text, the
link field populates the href, and the description populates the atl, I want to
give the user a single place to go and maintain these different pieces of their
site using lists but the splash page is not going to look like sp @ all.

What you want is a server control or web part that could be put on the page
where the data is pulled from a list. That is very easy to do with custom
programming, but very difficult to do any other way. You could also do it
by creating custom XSLT for an XML web part. But that isn't really any
easier than custom programming.

since I am creating it as an .aspx page and replacing the default.aspx that
SharePoint uses this will be perfect, iterating thru the lists  are not hard and
I can use the CSS properties to do the pretty stuff.

You mean something like this?

courses.improvingenterprises.com/.../calendar.aspx

The course calendar is a composite of three different SharePoint lists. The
About->Bios and News pages each hit one list. DataView/DataForm web parts
are loads of fun; you can do just about whatever you want with the markup
around the data.

If you want individual list  items to populate specific sections of the page,
you can use a single-item view instead and modify it to your aesthetic
liking.

What do you want it to look like???????????

i.e.1

Home | Calendar | Publications | Accessibility | FAQs | HIPPA
Glossary | Links | Jobs | Feedback | Webmaster

i.e.2

Home
Calendar
Publications
Accessibility
FAQs
HIPPA
Glossary
Links
Jobs
Feedback
Webmaster

Didn't see this hit the just wondering if there are any good  tut's or videos
etc. I know Paul Stork did a really good branding  video for Microsoft I was
there watching the live but I am more interested in the lists, someone had
mentioned xslt, is there any good xslt resources anyone has used?