How difficult might it be to modify the Tiny Forge footer areas?

That’s how Tiny Forge works 🙂

Not if you have more than one widget in each area and/or if one widget or area does not leave enough room for the next, and that is one reason I had previously switched from Twenty Eleven to Twenty Twelve so I could add widget areas that would remain as I want them. For example, my chat widget is set to use 100% of the total width percentage allotted to the left area. But in Tiny Forge, it takes the entire width of the screen and pushes (wraps) the other areas down. So, I need to stack widgets in left, center and right areas and then have them show that way unless on a small screen. If you wish, have a look here:
http://www.nnysandbox.net/

I got the widget areas from here:
http://www.sterndata.com/blog/responsive-design-css-stacking-columns

At least for me, it would be neat to have Tiny Forge have that kind of option, but I only know how to copy-and-paste!

Looks good to me, and I would assume the fourth widget area still exists across the bottom.

Another question from me would be about how to do this in Tiny Forge since I already have custom style sheets for older versions of IE:

/* remove twentytwelve-ie css and add our custom styles for IE<9 */
function mytheme_dequeue_styles() {
	wp_dequeue_style( 'twentytwelve-ie' );
}
add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'mytheme_dequeue_styles', 11 );

function mytheme_equeue_styles() {
	global $wp_styles;
	wp_enqueue_style( 'mytheme-ie8', get_stylesheet_directory_uri() . '/css/ie8.css', array( 'twentytwelve-style' ), '1.0' );
		$wp_styles->add_data( 'mytheme-ie8', 'conditional', 'IE 8' );
	wp_enqueue_style( 'mytheme-ie7', get_stylesheet_directory_uri() . '/css/ie7.css', array( 'twentytwelve-style' ), '1.0' );
		$wp_styles->add_data( 'mytheme-ie7', 'conditional', 'IE 7' );
	wp_enqueue_style( 'mytheme-ie6', get_stylesheet_directory_uri() . '/css/ie6.css', array( 'twentytwelve-style' ), '1.0' );
		$wp_styles->add_data( 'mytheme-ie', 'conditional', '<IE7' );
}
add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'mytheme_equeue_styles', 11 );

Would that be as simple as changing twentytwelve-ie to tinyforge-ie?

I will be trying that fairly soon, I hope! Also, you might want to add something this to ie.css for Tiny Forge in the next update to keep the <IE9 Password Box from appearing double-space empty just as it does in Twenty Twelve:

/* add input font for <IE9 Password Box to make the bullets show up */
input[type="password"] {
	font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
}

If you add any credit for that, it did not come from me:

/* from Srini G.
** add input font for <IE9 Password Box to make the bullets show up */
input[type="password"] {
	font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
}