Various issues with Live & Skype

I have just installed IM Control and found 2 issues that have previously been noted but no resolution found.

1. Username (specifically Skype) not allowing . in the field: I editted the imcontrol.page.inc file and removed the section beginning "// Check Skype name has no invalid characters....". This enabled me to enter my username including the . but it would not see me being logged in to Skype.

2. Windows Live: a user gets to enter their username and the domain is fixed at @apps.messenger.live.com but my Live/Passport account is @hotmail.com. I editted the imcontrol.edit.inc and imcontrol.page.inc files and replaced all instances of 'apps.messenger.live.com' with 'hotmail.com' and although this changed what the user sees it will not log me on to the service. As Live Messenger uses the Microsoft Passport service, a user can effectively have any email address as their username eg user@domain.com, user @blahblah.com etc etc as long as they've registered it with Passport.

So I have 2 questions....
1. Was what I did with the Skype setup correct and why does it not detect me being logged in???
2. How can the Live setup work with any email address and why could I not connect?

Please advise.

Thx