Those are both two very good suggestions, both already reported as "bugs" in bugs.maemo.org (please vote for https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2557 and https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5553). Unfortunately I doubt they will get fixed. Even though Modest is open-source, it would take quite a bit of programming by a community member to implement those changes.