Some comments about some of the "suggestions".

Re: handwriting recognition. I also love Graffiti 1, so much so that I hacked my Palm TX to use it instead of Graffiti 2. However, I do not have the time nor the desire to figure it out for the NIT. I bundled xkbd with xword since it was a quick-and-dirty solution. Nothing more. If you don't like it, don't use it (since it is an option), or come up with an alternate xkbd layout or input method that works better.

Re: screen rotation. I have that on my NIT as well, but rarely use it. I would argue that the vast majority of people don't have it installed. I feel that rewriting the code to handle that special case is over-the-top. The original garage maintainer specifically moved the toolbar buttons to the side to give more vertical room for the default layout. It would be easy enough to remove the toolbar buttons completely since those are actually available from the "Puzzle" menu anyway. But it would only help with super-wide puzzles since the 21x21 puzzle I'm testing fits without horizontal scrolling.

Re: displaying the clues. The default "word list layout" is "only puzzle" which gives enough room to fit the puzzle horizontally. The current word's clue is always displayed just above the puzzle. It's not ideal but it is workable.