I've been looking for a mid-level article/set of articles/videos like the OP is also seeking.  This thread helped me understand parts of it all better.
Thanks DannyHamilton and remotemass - those explanations were very helpful.

I would like to learn more about why counterfeiting isn't possible.  Or more to the point, why couldn't a 51% attacker use his majority network to confirm the creation of larger amounts of bitcoin?

I understand that bitcoins only come into existence as mining rewards and that the amount of reward is hardcoded into the software.  Is this alone enough to prevent the faster creation of bitcoin? If a 51% attacker could modify the client software his nodes run and why couldn't he control difficulty or simply change the block reward protocol?  Would his nodes be completely rejected by the other nework nodes at that point, effectively pushing him off the bitcoin network?