Kevin,
to your first question:
There is no option from any setup to change the width of the comments, but if you like you can change the values in the viewentry.ascx.
Open the file in a text editor, search the line
< asp:textbox id=txtComment cssclass="NormalTextBox" runat="server" width="400" textmode="MultiLine" rows="5"></asp:textbox></TD ></TR >
Now you can change the value if width to whatever you want.
Your second question:
I don't understand that question. Currently for each month for which blog entries are available an archive link will be created. If for a period no blog entries available no link will be created.
Have a look at my site, there are archive links only for the month with blog entries:
I think that should be exactly that what you expected.
If you mean everything else, please give or show me an example.
Regards
HP