Try this cab to remove the curtains. Although you may want to look into HDwalls, which can make everything truly transparent, what it does is actually extends the picture to the top and bottom of the screen. The shortcuts on the home screen is Sense 2.5, you need to d/l a ROM that has that version in it, Mighty and a few other chefs have them out, you've just gotta find them in the forum and flash to it, although they are still somewhat buggy and slow down a lot. Have you unlocked and flashed to a 6.5 ROM? Not clear by your post, but if not, read about it in the upgrade forum and check out the different ROM's in there. If after reading you still have questions, post away! Good luck and enjoy!
Edit: Scratch that regarding Mighty's ROM, just re-read your post, you're GSM, he's CDMA... there are GSM threads/ROMs out there, but you need to make sure you DO NOT FLASH OR UNLOCKED for CDMA, or you're gonna have a useless brick. Check this stuff out here...
http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/forumdisplay.php?f=99