I also notice quite a bit of lag the first 15-20 seconds of a song when making adjustments via the stalk. In searching around, I kind of gathered that was normal or is there some adjustment that can be made in the config to get rid of or lessen the lag?

I believe the "lag" you are describing is a known bug in 2.0 beta 13 that should be corrected by 2.0 final. It's not just the stalk, similar behavior can be observed from the front panel (for example, trying to fast-forward a song). There is no configuration change you can do to lessen it in Beta 13, it's just a bug.

The other problems, I don't know about. I'm only addressing the "lag" here.