I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm constantly clicking the close button instead of the send button when trying to send people private messages.
I think an X in the upper right corner would solve this problem.
The other question I have is, how come I cannot change color on an icon I'm using for the group. I move the slider bar to make it a different color but it's still black. Any suggestions on that one?
Yes, this is possible through limiting privilege of the various categories, as well as potentially a custom bit of javascript to redirect users to the login page.