i use mine in bed, as far as i can tell, as long as the pack vent isn't covered it should be fine, during general internet use it doesn't get any hotter than 50c
from what i've read in this forum, i'd have to choose the 1.4 and the 128MB vid....even without reading this forum i'd still go for the massive graphics....
easy mate, just go into the hidden file "boot.ini" in your c:\ root and remove the line for the OS that you don't want, and chuck /fastdetect at the end of the one your keeping...
I only recomend partitioning to keep better management of your drive. I just find that all that space on one drive is too much....so I split it up and those logical drives run fine for me.