Blegging for a little help with Blogger

Only experienced Blogger users need read this post.

1. Long ago I signed up not only for the regular Google ads that show up in the left-hand margin, but for one that would appear in a block below each post. Several months ago, Google discontinued the latter program, which is why there is now a blank white space at the bottom of every post. My problem is that I can't get rid of that space, and, depending on the post and the browser and settings, it sometimes interferes with the end of the post content. I have done all I can think of to erase that damned space, without success. In my "page elements" page, there is nothing between the "Blog posts" element and the "Add a gadget" element at the bottom. When I try to edit the "posts" element, I see the options shown above; what had been the ad option isn't there anymore, so I can't delete it. I've even searched through the template HTML trying to find the offending code, and nothing jumps out at me as likely being it (though I could easily overlook it, since I really don't know what I'm looking for). Blogger's help pages are so disorganized as to be completely useless. So the question is, how can I get rid of that annoying block of white that Blogger keeps inserting uselessly at the end of each post?

2. You can see in the screenshot above that I have the quick-editing option turned on. It used to work, but ever since I had my computer virus and repair, the icon doesn't show up for me at the end of posts. That makes editing posts after publishing them take longer than it should, because I have to slog back through the main editing page, select the post to edit, etc. The problem appears to be something in the system recognizing me. When I'm looking at the blog, it no longer has my user name at the top; instead, it gives me a link to "sign in." But when I click that link, it knows who I am without me entering any further information and takes me directly to the editing page. In other words, this may be some sort of a cookie problem, rather than a Blogger problem exactly. I have cookies enabled, though, so I can't figure out the glitch.

Suggestions welcome via comments or email.