I really wish I had my own suedo-forum as most of these questions have been answered before. However, I easily understand that noone is going to trudge through 800 posts without being able to search.
Anyway, niagaboy, I would suggest making your own ms.nbf. I am more than happy to help people learn how to do this. This is exactly what I do as I am flashing all day. I flash to test with a blank ExtRom and when I am done, I flash with my own ms.nbf. Its fairly simple. Anyway, I am surprised that your ExtRom was affected since it should have only flashed the rom.
The Flashlight softkey is conflicing with Smartskey. The flashlight will timeout or you can press and hold the press again.
You might be able to install cabs from the ExtRom to storage card. I have not needed to
. However this would entail modifying the cab itself and changing the destination directories.