Steve,

>2. Anybody have a recommendation for a FREE subscriber e-mail sign-up form for a website?

I know you said free, but have you checked out Microsoft's BCentral List Builder for $29.95 per month and a 30-day free trial?

One of my customers uses that for managing his lists, including signup from the website, and he loves it.

You just add a link on your site "Sign up for free info" or "Sign up for our free newsletter" and point the link to your BCentral URL. They handle all the rest of it, including taking all the info (including demographics you require), giving you a web interface to manage the list and extract sub-lists from it, download the list contents at any time so you have a local copy, allow you to send up to 10,000 newsletters or other email communications per month (MS does the sending so you don't get in trouble with your ISP), allow the subscriber to manage his/her own information online, including unsubscribing.

That is a LOT of functionality for just $30 per month and you can use it free for the first month, so you can get up and running immediately.

http://www.bcentral.com/products/lb/default.asp