I have asked about the faded buttons. Can you try in different browsers as well, Chrome and / or Firefox.

For the HTML Maker the reason we never used it is allowing HTML can open up exploits in the forum for people to run undesired code. Mr. Excel ran into some issues and not sure if the HTML maker was the culprit or not but allowing HTML does pose problems.

I will look into it and see how the new forum version handles this. Perhaps the security is better.