revisiting the categories listing on the FRONT page issue

Funny how all these older post questions on how to add categories to pages either end up in awful WP core code hacks that no one with common sense should do or they simply have no solution available.

So, here is an idea i keep rotating in my mind but i am not sure if this can be done with WP at all:

Desired end result … a directory that starts with masonry layout of ALL of the main categories of the directory (i think that’s the most difficult part to do, but so far came up with an idea that requires no core code messing, i make the 1st main category post a sticky post, make the theme or WP to display sticky posts on top and limit the posts shown on the front pages “latest posts” to the exact number of main categories i have, so no matter how many hundreds of new posts i will later add, the main page will always just show these sticky posts main categories only).

Good idea or not??

These sticky posts for each main category would than, naturally, lead to each categories main page and first again display any sub categories only and so on, but i am not sure how this will unfold down to the final sub category and it’s listings – and most of all, i am not convinced the whole idea as such is even doable this way or if anyone in here has a better, more elegant idea (no core code hacking please, only child theme adjusting would be fine)??