The newer block explorer is working though.  Not sure if its still in a beta test mode.

http://gold.cryptocoinexplorer.com/

There are now some recognizable trading bots on Cryptsy.  For instance, today I put in a small order at 0.00001823 BTC for GLD.  Shortly there after a bot added its own bid at 0.00001824 for the exact same amount of GLD.

This may be a good thing, though it is annoying, to be outbid by 1 Satoshi.  But it does increase the amount of buy orders at the top end.

I have also noticed some 8 Satoshi bots on GLD.  They have been seen in both LTC and BTC markets.

AMD is coming out with new cards (or is it just a rebranding of the old cards?):
http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/08/amds-r7-and-r9-graphics-cards-mantle/
http://www.amd.com/us/press-releases/pages/amd-radeon-r9-2013sept25.aspx
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-280x-r9-270x-r7-260x,3635.html

So far I haven't found any information about how fast these are at mining scrypt.

In the Bitcointalk forums, there are some posts about FPGA's for scrypt:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=172164.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=306018.0
http://www.cryptoindustries.com/

You are certainly correct, the multipool (hashco.ws) is driving up the difficulty (by only by 41% at a time).  Unfortunately, recently the multipool stayed with the network for 2 difficulty changes for nearly a 100% increase.  Now we have some very long block times.

A change in the difficulty re-targeting method is one way to handle this.  Several coins have made these kinds of changes.  GoldCoin's method was updated at the end of August, which minimizes some of the damage done by multipools compared to other coins such as DGC and IFC (before they were updated).  The idea behind the difficulty retarget is that the difficulty should increase in such a way as to make the coin less profitable compared to some other coin, without having a drastic increase in the difficulty that would make the network very slow after the multipool left.

The DevTeam is looking into this matter currently.

As the quoted article states, the client will break up GoldCoins based on the way that they are deposited into the address.

If someone puts 10,000 into the address, then 5,000 is paid out to the development team: the result is that 10,000 are removed from the address, 5,000 sent to the developer and 5,000 returned to the wallet under a different address.

If someone puts 5,000 into the address and later 5,000 is paid out to the development team, then the client will take the 5,000 and send it to the developer.  No change needs to be made.

You know what the problem is?

People don't mine to support a coin any more.

That is an excellent point. 

We can add a topic that details the different ways to buy bitcoins in various countries.

Do you have experience with Android Apps?