[luxor]

You're on the right path as far as relying on the smarty templates.

You can create you're own tpl's with the static page info / code , and then include the tpl file inside category page based on condition of the currently loaded category which I belive should be accessible, and then include the tpls of the product listing, under this etc.

I am not sure if the category is available as a variable you can run a condition on.

If you can, then you can even create your own language variables to be used inside the tpl file you create, and then you would be able to control the content on the 'static section' from web master mode and admin section.