Module development and code questions

would the following module be any use to people?

A module that allow users to specify any page on the site to be their homepage. So that when they first login, or they click the home link in the breadcrumbs that's where they are taken.

I wanted to go directly to a different page to everyone else when I first logged in. I thought this would be the best way of doing it.

I've got the basics up and running on test.xai-corp.net

I installed the Events module, and all of my events are showing up with a Start time of 12/31/1969 - 5:00pm, irregardless of the actual Start time specified in the content. What am I missing?

My post deals with a slight problem that I'm having with inserting. I am expanding the event module to include a location field. The event module utilizes nodeapi. When I put all of the fields in and hit preview, it looks fine, which tells me that during the node instance of preview the $node->location is set, but it never inserts it into the database, so it does not actually come up when users view it. My event table has the following fields

int(10) start
int(10) end
int(10) tz //timezone
int(10) nid
varchar(20) location

Here's a quick rundown of the important code:

//First I have a form textarea for the location
function event_nodeapi(&$node, $op, $arg = 0) {
switch ($op) {
...
case 'form post':
$form = '';
if (variable_get('event_nodeapi_'. $node->type, 'never') != 'never') {
global $user;
$form .= form_textarea(t('Location:'), 'location', $node->location, 30, 20, '', NULL, FALSE);
}
}
return $form;
...
//Then I have my insert function.
case 'insert':
if (variable_get('event_nodeapi_'. $node->type, 'never') != 'never') {
$fields = array('nid', 'start', 'end', 'location');
db_query('INSERT INTO {event} (nid, start, end, tz, location) VALUES (%d, %d, %d, %d, %s)', $node->nid, $node->start, $node->end, $node->tz, $node->location);
}
event_set_range();
break;

Is it safe to remove core modules (e.g. blog, profile, forum, taxonomy, story, comment...) all together from the modules directory? I don't want any module I'm not using at the moment to be visible on the module administration page. Or are certain modules required to be present, even if they are not used?

I have installed the banner module, but when I add a banner I see it in the admin-panel. But the banner is not vissible on the top of the header....

This may sound stupid, but I can't figure out a way to have the module output at the top of each node, next to the title or something. Preferrably if it's possible I would like to call a theme_function() there.

I'm sure it's somewhere in the code, but I can't find it.

Thanks in advance.