RE:Q1
I think you're right for two reasons;
1) Despite excessive downward pressure due to heavy naked shorting and lack of news, the SP has been rather resilient to declining much past $2.70, and
2) The closer we get, the lighter the volumes have been. They're downright tiny now, so I expect everyone has made their bets. If bad news was in the cards, the big boys would be offloading now at least at the rate of "normal" volumes, but that's not happening.
So here's hoping.