In reverse order....

3. From previous posts, we know you have some experience with perl. From your description here (and the implied emphasis on points 1 and 2), you can probably do very nicely with plain CGI or maybe CGI::Application, without confronting the overhead of mastering Catalyst, Mason or similar.

I say this because your light user-load and the (modest?) demands for monitoring a small group of servers seem to invite simplicity. (And, much as I hate to say it, this may be a case where javascript could be appropriate.)

2. Layout:

• Keep it simple; provide clear distinction between the reports on the various servers, and, since you're not in a situation requiring whiz-bang presentation to keep bored browsers intrigued, buying things or such like, don't worry much beyond getting another set of eyes on what you come up with, just to make sure others can easily find what they require on your page(s).
• As to fonts, read-able is good, and common-place is accessible.
• For color, reserve red (or a culturally appropriate alternative) for critical warnings or failures and maintain good contrast between background-color (if any) and text.
• As to pictures, I don't see where they fit in, unless you anticipate using graphs for complex or time-spanning data, in which case, position them with other data displayed for that server.

1) My prejudice: There is no such thing as a good WYSIWYG .html editor because even the latest versions of the gold-standard commercial offerings produce invalid or unnecessarily verbose code.

That said, .html (esp html written to the 4.01 strict or transitional standard) is so simple and close to natural language English that it; a mere smattering of CSS (yes, I'm adding a learning requirement here); a few hours with a recent-and-decent tutorial; and a good text editor (perhaps with syntax highlighting) should get you well on the way to proficiency.

FWIW, I found that a readiness to use an html validator (http://validator.w3.org/ or for Windows CSE HTML Validator or derivatives available for Firefox or any of a number of good nix-ish counterparts will speed your learning and improve your results.

w3c also offers a CSS validator at http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/. As long as you don't get hung up on the kind of nitpicking concerns upon which too many designers of public/commercial sites tend to focus, a small amount of CSS will take you a long way.

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