As for the skins, when you log in online it somehow adds a file to your folder and skins may become active after that. If you are having troubles with skins after logging online, then possibly you have some sort of antivirus (as I did) click on the properties of a skin file and see if there is a check box to unblock the file. Hope this helps.
Also, it may just have been possible that the text box was moved to a position out of view. Especially, since they added the resize capability.
This leads me to a general wishlist item, GUI default button that would also help to reset pilot head view dead center. My appologies for wishlist item on support forums