To configure the roles so that VL2.0 works with WP 2.0 as if it were WP 1.5:
Get Owen's Role Manager plugin installed and active. Go to the "Users" section in the admin panel. You should see "Roles" as a third option beside "Your Profile" and "A&U." Select it. Configure your roles as you want. In my case, non-admins should only read, so for them, everything is disabled but:
- for the subscriber: read, level 0
- contributer: read, level 0, level 1
- author: read, level 0, 1, and 2
- editor: read, level 0, 1, 2, 3
The admin (only you, presumably), is allowed to do everything. This means that you only have 3 different kinds of levels for subscribed people available to you. Much less than in WP 1.5ish versions. But, the good news is, with the above system you can totally block lower level users from messing around in your WP install, which was much harder to do in 1.5.
Remember, though, that the dashboard by default shows "recent posts," which include public posts of any level. To disable that, install x-Dashboard and configure it. Also, while VL2.0 is supposed to work on feeds, in my case, it didn't. I ended up disabling all feeds. I like that better for my purposes anyway, since my blog is mostly personal data.
Your point 1) above is right. Hopefully now you're configured and set. The rank system was pretty funny, btw, and it might end up being surprisingly accurate ;).
Good luck!