Well, for the spam, we'll work on it manually for the time being. We want to make it as easy as possible to join in at first, kind of zero barriers-of-entry (would you have posted a reply without having to make an account? What if you got the captcha wrong twice?). No captchas right now, no email required for an account, etc.

As spam becomes unmanageable, we'll implement captchas for anonymous accounts. They're ready to be flipped on with a switch!

The white space in the green box is for the voting arrows, but I think you're quite right. Everyone has mentioned those, so we'll have to work on them.