Hello, I am one of those "non-coders" mentioned up above, trying to get my feet wet. What's throwing me off are images. Other than 1:1, 2:1, etc. Assuming any images used would have to be manually (or batch) size for fast load use, how would one know what size to optimize their images for?

There's a setting in RLM to adjust the aspect ratio to other then the one selected. Seemed to work fine for me. I used 1:2 and set the Aspect Ratio to 2 and 3. My images were actually 2:3

As a non-coder, I have this same issue with images. Can the images be seen in RLM to manipulate before export to help with this optimizing of aspect ratio?

There's a place holder that mimics the image. You can alter the placeholders appearance as far as background color to make it more visible in your layout.

Take a look at this video.
http://vimeo.com/87861252