Searching for Help with Minor Site Enhancements

We recently launched thecubreporter.com and have $105 leftover of our startup money to try and accomplish the following tweaks (in order of preference):

1) Reduce header size about 25-30% from top of page to where posts start. Would like to discuss best ways possible to do that (smaller menu bar, logo, etc).
2) Make it easy to add top banner advertisement to right of logo either through use of blocks, or if necessary, explanation of where to put code. Our knowledge of Drupal is limited and we really do prefer not to have to edit much code.
3) We would like to modify "Featured Post" block in upper left, so that it's a two tabbed block with "Featured Post" and "Recent Posts", similar(okay, exactly) to what you'd find at the upper left of http://www.bugsandcranks.com/. Looking for suggestions on easiest way to implement and maintain.
5) Menu bar on top should drop-down on mouse roll-over or a single click for any menu items with children items (Currently just TCR Junk Drawer). Right now, you have to click on the menu link and it opens a new page and then displays the child items. I've attempted to use the "Nice Menus" module, but I couldn't get it to work properly with our theme and design.
6) Numbered comments - Each comment should get an individual number based on the latest comment. For example check out http://www.plastic.com/article.html?sid=02/10/10/10502955;mode=nested. Each number is based off the latest comment, but if you're viewing the "threaded view" you'll notice how the numbers jump. Also should automatically reference that number if someone replies to that comment.
7) CSS suggestions to differentiate headlines better on the page, particulary in IE7 where the font is too small.
8) CSS suggestion to differentiate links better on the pages, looks too similar to bold type right now.
9) Keystrokes to jump between new comments. Not even sure this is possible, but if there are new comments on a post, after the user clicks on "new comments" (assuming more than one), it would jump to the first new comment. It would be great if by simply pressing "n" (or whatever letter), the user could jump to each new comment.

Would expect all changes to be made offline,tested and approved before implemented on the live site. If any changes need to be made by us, expect CLEAR, CONCISE instructions on how to do-so. Let us know if the scope of the project is unreasonable for the budget, we can discuss shaving off some items from the bottom up.