Good to see it kinda sorted! The battery status thing is kinda annoying, I agree. It's hidden in the settings page. I think because the thing lasts so long on one charge and that people would charge it before it got empty is why they didn't bother theming it for the Kindle.
The settings can be accessed at the bottom where the menu bar is. It's the button next to the arrow that looks like a piece of paper with lines. That is universal for every app keep that in mind.
Quick settings, (ex. device info, brightness) is the little circle button next to the Wifi icon.
App downloads can take a bit to download for whatever odd reason like the server being overloaded or the internet connection timing out. I have this happen a lot on my iPhone. It's a problem with the internet in general. A simple reboot of the device can usually fix that.
Read the KF's user guide:
http://kindle-fire-updates.s3.amazon...User_Guide.pdf It will help you understand the device a lot better and covers the UI very well.
It also comes preinstalled on your Fire if you need to reference it later.
