Creating content view in panels

Is there a way to create a list of content with multiple content types or by excluding a content type?

The use case is that I would like to be able to filter the jobs from the main flow of discussion and highlight them elsewhere on the group. The reason for this is that I still want to have recent polls, event, and probably wikipages included in the main stream of information on the front page without having them separated into different areas. For example, I could have a block with the most recent poll but if that poll is really old or something, I don't really want it to show up at all.

On a broader topic - is there any type of raodmap/plan for various features being implemented into g.d.o for the redesign? I have some other ideas/requests for improving the groups, but I don't want to step on anyones toes with existing plans.