An update from Apple last night has fixed my problem with the screenserver not requiring a password.
I have not tested the ‘password required after waking up from sleep’ yet, though that is next on my list. I, also, was unable to get anything to crash last night after applying this update to my MacBook Pro. The update for Mac OS X 10.4.6 supposedly fixes a number of hardware problems but there was not any mention of the issues that I had been seeing. As I have stated before, I can not find anyone else reporting the same problems via Goggle searches.
I am looking forward to the update for the new version of iSync - the problems with .Mac syncing between multiple computers has been an annoyance for a while, though prior to my MacBook Pro I had not noticed as many before. Syncing last night worked like a charm and the updates I had done via another computer yesterday did show up correctly.
The update for Mac OS X 10.4.6 is available via this link.