1. I agree, the text size could be 1px bigger. Perhaps you can offer two or three different font sizes. Many governmental sites have that now, the same with the contrast (e.g. http://www.forsakringskassan.se). I think it is even a EU regulation to offer that.

2. Here I disagree with Jakob. Having the links in a different colour is working as perfect as having them underlined. And having them not underlined gives a much better readability.

Different colours for visited links is a good idea.

I like external links opening in a new windows to not loose the visitor who perhaps wants to continue reading my page after looking at the external link.

4. The length of your entries is good. But some more illustration would be nice.

9. No problem to even fix the top picture for liquid layout since it is fading into a single colour. I know how to do that with tables, but unfortunately not how to with CSS.

Anyhow, maybe this helps: You add a new table in the cell where the picture is (width 100%). The table has two cells, left for the picture (align left and width of the picture), right filled with the single colours and width 100%. In this way, the right cell will always “fill” the liquid layout with the single colour.

Keep on blogging!