Well, I'm not exactly a great scripter either (I'm more of an eventer, really,) but I can help you with #2, at least
If you go into your script editor and pull up the Game_Actor script, right near the bottom of that you'll see 'Get Battle Screen Y-Coordinate,' which is set to 464 by default. Just shift that down to your desired level, and you'll be all set ^^
With the first you may be able to use the color graphic codes that you can use in text, but I can't give you a real answer there, other than to point you in that direction.
For the third, I have no idea, though it seems like it would require a special script for the people following the lead character to move in the four non-cardinal directions, but that's just a guess on my part