Hi MJ,

For the popular posts issue, it is most likely a plugin. Make sure the post plugin library and most-commented plugins are uploaded and activated. They are included in the theme package in the plugins folder.

For the top post's width being condensed, this is a design feature to avoid an image overflowing the top area and leaving no room for text. If you would like to remove this feature, open the style.css included with the theme, and remove the

'max-width:400px' value from 

#topentry p img, #topentry p img a {

and the image should revert to normal. I'd recommend however sizing down the image in the wordpress editor, or using a thumbnail version of the image, unless you want it to stretch full across the top post area of the index page.