Well, it's been maybe half an hour or so since the last update, in which I went ahead and implemented my idea. Currently I am typing this into an almost plain-text file, which is read by a php script and dumped into the index page.
I say almost plain-text, because it actually allows arbitrary html. The file is literally dumped into a paragraph tag on the main page. So, if I want to put a link, or a list, or really anything, it is quite simple.
Ideas for the future include having some paragraph auto-detection, where the update will be wrapped with a p tag if there are no p tags inside the update. Then, change the current wrapper into just a div, to allow more freedom.
Update: (to the update) I've just added the logic described above, and edited this update to use it. Now the fun time is to test it :D