#1: I like and I think there's probably an elegant solution to that. Leave it with me.
#2: You wont get. Sorry
It would be a confusing button. I know what you're saying but when you're viewing a thread, you have the menu items & buttons that are associated with doing 'stuff' in that thread. To create a new thread, you have that option when you're viewing the threads of a particular forum. If I add a "New Thread" option within a thread, it's a guarantee that people will mistakenly use that when they want to reply to that thread.
Thanks for the suggestions. It's difficult to be objective sometimes of what might be a good feature. Your input is always welcome (and needed, actually).