2. why (and this might be related to 1!) I'm being told that I have a bad ratio… I should be able to download 15 torrents at a time, but it won't let me? ATM I have 4 downloading... possibly...
It's been a couple of weeks since you posted, but your ratio is good at this point, 1.993.
You have less than 10GB upload and a ratio greater than 1, so you can download 6 torrents at a time. That will increase to 10 torrents when your upload is greater than 10GB, which you are close to reaching.