The current system uses templates which can be modified to suit your needs - we offer a gallery layout and a forum layout by default (see
www.michaelpierce.com/gallery/index.php is a gallery example).
2) Yes, you can place an htaccess file in the respective directory for the video category to prevent hotlinking.
3) Branding free allows you to remove the references; it is not pre-removed. There are only a few locations for this kind of information.
4) I do not know anything about Mac servers, so cannot answer that question specifically.