>On the left side of the UT screen, there is 15 big buttons and 4 smaller buttons. I do not see "Downloads" in there?

Just click on Forum main page in the upper toolbar. See recent announcements for more details.

>When I enter into this UT site, it takes a while for the UT to come up (to be able to log on), is it because this site is created by VFP?

No, it's because there is a problem somewhere along the route.

>There used to be numbers showing next to the 4 small buttons, not anymore, what happened? I don't come in here religiously, but sometimes often.

That requires a browser which supports innerhtml since the last 4 months. IE 5 and up with do it.