Twenty Seventeen Image size issues – Any better, similar theme options?

I absolutely love the format of the Twenty Seventeen static homepage, the way it is divided into sections that link to content, and the featured images are displayed in a sort of “peek-a-boo” format as you scroll down the page.

What I DON’T like is the way it sizes the header and featured images. First of all, I think they are too large. They are designed to take up the full screen, and I would rather they only utilize the top half of the screen. I also don’t like the fact that they are always distorted, even if the image is sized to the recommended dimensions (2000×1200), causing parts of the image to be offscreen. This isn’t too terrible if your featured image or header is abstract, but if it contains pertinent data like text, or important parts of the image are cut off, it ruins the effect.

I’ve been experimenting with different techniques to fix these problems, but it is a labor intensive effort that almost doesn’t seem worth it, so I was wondering if there are any other themes in existence that have the same peek-a-boo function with multiple front page sections that might better fit my needs? Or any way to create my own theme with a similar static front page that doesn’t require extensive knowledge of coding?

The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]