OK...
I have found a solution to question 1
(I should have noted that I am using 1.5.10 so the previous answer at
http://www.gavick.com/forum.html?func=view&catid=46&id=15500 gave me a clue, but that resolution is applicable to 1.0.x only)
So if you are using Joomla 1.5.x
Open the file "modules/mod_gk_news_highlighter/helper.php"
Find the following line (should be around 176 - if you are having difficulties just search for "strip", there are only two occurences in the file and both are in the line you need to replace)...
"$content[$i] .= '<span class="gk_news_highlighter_desc">'.JString:: substr(strip_tags($this->textTab[$i]), 0, $this->config['desc_length']).''.((JString:: strlen(strip_tags($this->textTab[$i])) > $this->config['desc_length']) ? '...' : '' ) . '</span>';"
and replaced it with the following...
"$content[$i] .= '<span class="gk_news_highlighter_desc">'.JString:: substr(($this->textTab[$i]), 0, $this->config['desc_length']).''.((JString:: strlen(($this->textTab[$i])) > $this->config['desc_length']) ? '...' : '' ) . '</span>';"
So what I did was remove "strip_tags" from both JString s This seems to have worked for me...
NOTE: I had to add some spaces to the above code snippets to stop the editor fouling the code with emoticons... make your edits manually rather than cutting and pasting the code above - or you may get errors!
Upwards and onwards... now all I need to do is find a way to use my Web Links as a Section/category...