Configuration

Hi There, I have been evaluating your product for a few weeks now and have what I suspect are "newbie" questions so I apologise for that but your input would be appreciated...

I have a property management site which I would like to use your component and modules to support.
The requirement is to publish a Date available on the page of the property in question along with a method of publishing all property availability dates in say, a footer module position.

I have set up a test site and employed the following in an attempt to deliver this requirement:
1) I have set up individual categories for each property so that I can use the lasted event module to only display the renewal for that particular property.
2) I have created a Renewal date event for each property within the appropriate category.
3) I have put the filter module into a footer module position and enabled the "by category" option.

All this seems to work well but I have the following questions:
a) I originally set up categories for 1 bedroom, 2 bedroom etc but found I could not show only one property as in 1) above so ended up setting up sub categories under these headings for each property - is there a better way to do this?
b) I need to get my head around the date "custom format string" options as ideally I would only have the day (not to include the time or duration) of the renewal displayed - can you point me in the correct direction?
c) I do not seem to be able to modify the display format (using "choose layout View" for the latest event module it always looks the same - what have I missed?

I look forward to your response...