Hi,
on 2) you mean yesterday?
on 4) have you heard of the fudged population function that's in there? I don't have the correct details at hand but something along the lines:
if population < 1000 then show population
if population > 1000 and < 10000 then show population*1,5
if population > 10000 then show population*3
and so on.
Thats really simply demonstrates the problem at hand here. It has nothing to do with "no apparent reason".
on 7) T Wrecks has said all what needs to be said, there.
If you like you can look further for the "traveling Salesman" Problem in relation to the agent system used in this iteration of SimCity.
For me it is clear that you won't get greater building areas unless they rewrite the whole underlying "simulation" engine.
greetings