This may also be a result of the IE7 incompatibility. If you are using IE try logging in using Firefox and see if most of your issues are resolved. There is also an issue with register_globals... see the following forum links for possible solutions:
http://osticket.com/forums/showpost.php?p=152&postcount=11(http://osticket.com/forums/showpost.php?p=152&postcount=11)
http://osticket.com/forums/showpost.php?p=215&postcount=14(http://osticket.com/forums/showpost.php?p=215&postcount=14)
Looking forward to most of these issues being resolved, the new version looks promising.
Steve