I think moving the status bar to the location bar was a bad idea. The area in and around the location bar is already quite cluttered so I don't see the point. In many cases the bar isn't even big enough for the entire URL of the link being hovered over, unlike when it was in the status bar.
Totally agree. Although I actually use a thick black sock where the top and bottom are sewed together :). I lose face masks all the time so I started to just make my own and not worry about losing them.
On newsley, I don't think making the description a link is a good idea. Digg does this too and I find it very annoying as I'll accidentally click it sometimes (for example, if I want to copy and paste it). I'd also suggest making the description text a lighter color so the titles stand out a bit more.
For a smallish project that you can figure out fairly easily, I recommend the Kohana framework. It's extremely well documented and it's quite easy to read. Many people actually recommend reading its source to supplement the documentation and after having to do so myself I can see why.
What the hell is wrong with you?