You should keep yourself up to date by reading the change log, here. As to why, the falling meteor mod's items can be right clicked from the hotbar to add their enchantments so they can used to get free exp levels.
Simple fix here, just to the OP game mode config in the forestry config folder and change the fertilizer time value, easy mode's is 2000 so maybe 10000 would be a good number.
The old farms and harvesters will be gone in 1.5 so everyone needs to get used to the new multi farms anyway. Some info on the multi farms http://forestry.sengir.net/wiki.new/doku.php?id=farms:structure
I don't like Millenaire myself, the vanilla villages are more useful once you add Forestry and Thaumcraft into the mix. The lag Millenaire causes increase once villages start warring or trading and Millenaire villages are difficult to upgrade(any ravine or lake within the village can't be built over). Oh and you can just go ahead and delete Millenaire too.
Blech FTB, I gave up on it after a week of failed downloads. But when you have to download the files from something called Creeper host you should expect it to blow up in your face. If FTB ever gets their shit together and uses a good host for the downloads I might change my mind.