Everything is an excerpt, but option says "full text"

Any post I make cuts the text off a predefined character count. I currently have it configured so 5 posts will show on my front page. All of these posts though (and the posts shown in their categories) are cut off and followed by [...]. I went into the Theme settings, "Posts or Excerpts" and selected "Full Posts" for everything. I saved and refreshed, but still all the posts get cut-off. Any idea what is wrong?

Also I cannot see any "next/previous page" links. Where are these suppose to show up? I have it configured so that 5 posts are shown in the category view, but how do I view the other (older) posts in that category? There is no way to navigate to them. All the options in the "Next/Previous Navigation" configuration are set to the default.

This may be in the wrong forum, but I didn't want to create 2 different threads.

Another issue I am having is with the BYLINE. I entered the example code (By %author%, on %date('F jS, Y')%) into all of the BYLINE options in the "Post/Page Info Items" configuration, but the byline never shows up on any of my posts.

I use WP MU 2.7

Note: I decided to upload a fresh version of the theme (using a different name for it), though the css and layout was messed up (due to my other install of this theme), then next/previous page links showed up as well as the BYLINE info. This seems to lead to the conclusion that somehow with my customized theme these options/features became corrupt or something, any idea on how to fix this? or can I hard code it in?

Thanks.
Ace`