Module development and code questions

I'm aware some of them wont work but off hand anyone know which ones do work out of the modules that haven't be updated specifically to the new 4.6.1? I'm thinking of using the cafepress one but unsure if it will bork if I attempt to use it.

Hi,
I posted a question about the use of Smarty at http://drupal.org/node/24442 and found my own answer.

My other question is:
Is it desirable to use all those functions like theme('table', $header__row, $rows) , form_submit to create the UI components?

what do I lose if I just html-code tables, forms etc in my smarty template file and fill in the data?

I am using the new module Aggregator2, which creates permanent nodes from RSS feed items. Drupal by default sorts these based on creation date -- a variable the module generates by sniffing the feed's data.

I like this creative use of dating. But I want the nodes instead to be sorted by the order they were generated by Drupal. Newer ones would appear at the top and push older ones south.

I have searched but not found -- probably due to lack of demand -- a way to sort nodes by node id. Ideas?

I'd like to write a simple module that displays a list of files available for download.
I've followed the sample module guide/tutorial, and I've got the basics of this done (very quickly, yay!) - as a block. What I don't understand yet, is how this block could be transformed to show as a page as well.

I've been using Drupal for a while and love it, but I am confused regarding image galleries / albums. I'm making a MySpace.com type site where I want users to post image galleries / photo albums like the book module.

I've used image.module, album.module, even tried gallery2 and simplealbum.module (for 4.5), but they don't really do what I want or work very well. I want to help developing this functionality, but want to know:

I'm following the "how to create a block" with modifications.

I wrote the following code after getting the block enabled and working as described in the tutorial.
I expected this to return the output defined in the _testBlock_all function when I went to my
.../testblock page, but I get a page not found error. I also tried /?q=testBlock

Did I misunderstand the capability or do something wrong?

Thanks,