I think this may be a side-effect of an otherwise helpful plugin that lets you easily re-organize your page hierarchies. It’s got a drag and drop interface that lets you easily set the topnav order. I should disable the plugin and check again.

However, what I did was to go into the Admin section and go to Write | Write Page. I wrote a page to use as my static front page and gave it the title “Main page” then I wrote another page but just gave it a title “Latest Articles” and put no content on the page, to see what would happen.

In Options | Reading, I set the Front Page as “Main Page” and the Posts Page as the empty “Latest Articles” Page.

I’m not sure how to set different templates for the two Pages yet, but for the time being I don’t need to do that and I’ve got the result I was after. The static Welcome page now displays by default and when I click on the Latest Articles link in my sidebar it displays the posts.

Hope this helps someone out there.

Excellent information given. I wonder how come no one has commented on it yet. Either people are too lazy, or you cant be found through Search Engines(although I did find you thro an SE)

All I wanted to say is it superb info, and I found it very informative and helpful! Thanks, also great links!

I am new to WP and learning pHp as I go.

Have you looked here?
http://www.nyceducated.info/blog/internet/the-real-ultimate-static-front-page/