It sounds like the code might be part of the issue. If code isn't developed in a way that makes refactoring easy then as time goes on the code becomes more complex and it's harder to add even simple features without breaking stuff. You may want to look for a developer who knows how to refactor legacy code. If someone recommends a rewrite it's almost always a bad idea.
Probably for the same reason you have to enter your password to install stuff on a computer. It's a security layer to make sure only the owner is installing software on the phone.
If I'm looking at a SaaS app and consider trying it out, I want to know the pricing before I start so I can evaluate if it's even in the ballpark of possibility. If I don't see a price I typically keep looking for an app that lists pricing up front.
The book that really helped me was Agile Software Development by Robert Martin. It outlines some of the best principles for writing software that will be high quality and easy to extend and refactor for years to come.
When editing my profile, I click on "twitter username" or "blog or website url" and it immediately replaces the form with "entering a third place..." and it just sits there.
I understand that there are tradeoffs when you choose to build on a framework. I've written many applications from scratch (without frameworks) then I've written custom frameworks and CMSs for various projects and now I'm looking at existing frameworks as a way to bring in quality code, with features that I would be implementing by hand otherwise.
I've been impressed with CodeIgniter and now I'm working with Kohana because it's still fast, fairly low level and if I want to use the higher level stuff for prototyping I can and then I can refactor down to lower levels easily for performance later on when it's necessary.
There are things that I'd consider to be frameworkish components being built into PHP. For example the filter extension is something where prior to it's inception I had this functionality built into my framework. You could say it's a framework for filtering input.
When you use frameworks that have to use all of the frameworks 'magic' you do get a performance hit. It will almost always be faster to implement your own SQL statements instead of relying on an active record library, especially with complex logic.
You need to balance what you're trying to do with what you're options are. If you're writing a personal app that only you are using and you want it out as soon as possible then some of these frameworks like Ruby on Rails or Symfony would be great. Something to get the code out so you can start using it. If you are really concerned with performance then use something like the Zend Framework where you can reimplement parts for performance and do all your queries by hand.
Hey, I'm the organizer of the Madison Php group. We should get together to talk about your project, I might be able to hook you up with some developers. http://php.meetup.com/125