Simple Tagging plugin

I’ve just switched from UTW to the Simple Tagging plugin and although it appears to be put a much lighter load on my WP install I have a couple of questions that I’m really confused about. I don’t consider my self stupid in the least but sometimes the simplest things elude me. So if anybody can help…

Things I can’t figure out:

1. (major frustration here) There is no place just to add a new tag to the list of existing tags without being forced to “match it” to an already existing tag. This, of course, adds it to one or more posts the existing tag is already assigned to. I just want to add a tag to the list for future use. You can’t do it via the write post page (as you could with UTW), the “manage tags” page or anywhere else that I’ve found. Does anyone know what I’m missing here?

2. In the “manage tags” page, in the list of tags (left sidebar), the number of posts assigned to each tag is shown as a link that is suppose to take you somewhere to see a list of those posts assigned to that particular tag but only takes you to a 404 page. The link I see down in my status bar when I hover over the post count, ie:(16), assigned to any given tag looks like this:

http://just-thinkin.net/wp-admin/(name of tag)

This url goes nowhere but to a 404 page of course.

All the other various problems are already listed in Tickets at the plugins site at “Trac” but I haven’t found anywhere there that might offer some way to contact the author.

Perhaps I’m just having a “missing it” couple of days but I’m wondering if anybody could give me a helping hand here. It would be greatly appreciated.