Iron Man 2

I saw Iron Man 2 on Saturday night, and generally enjoyed it.  It wasn’t a perfect movie, nor did it have the same sense of “freshness” that the first one had, but it was a fun romp with some good lines and great special effects.  All of that being said, I have some questions that I’d like to see answered:

SPOILER WARNING!!!

1. Why didn’t Vanko make the drones out of the same much-more-durable material that he made his own suit out of?
2. How does the new element that Stark creates magically cure him of palladium blood poisoning?
3. Since said new element is supposed to be “the source of limitless energy that will make nuclear power look like a AA battery,” is it safe to assume that the world’s energy crisis will be completely alleviated in Iron Man 3?
4. Why does Stark seem to get weaker or more energetic, based on how his chest-battery is doing?  If I recall from Iron Man 1, that battery was simply powering an electromagnet that was preventing a piece of shrapnel is his body from reaching his heart.  Is it now doing more than that?
5. How is Rhodes able to use the silver suit that he hijackes from Stark’s basement?  Did Stark conveniently create a version for people who don’t have radioactive batteries embedded in their chest?
6. Why does Howard Stark go to so much trouble to hide the information from his son that he apparently wants him to find? 
7. Why does Vanko, who seems to have no qualms about killing innocent bystanders, not direct the drones to just shoot the freaking people at the Stark Expo?
8. What happened to the shot of Iron Man talking to Pepper Pots and getting a kiss from her on the helmet, before jumping out of the plane at the beginning of the movie, that we saw so many times in the trailer?    Was it too much of a reminder that Stark was supposed to have fallen in love with Pepper at the end of the last movie, and therefore make all of his unashamed flirting with Scarlett seem a lot sleazier?
9. Why are we supposed to believe that Howard Stark had Anton Vanko deported when he found out that Vanko wanted to use the arc reactor technology to get rich?  Isn’t that what Stark was doing anyway, with all his other developments?
10. How does Black Widow know how to turn-off and reboot War Machine’s suit using Vanko’s custom software as soon as she looks at it?  If it’s that straightforward, why doesn’t she use it to turn off all of the drones and/or Vanko’s suit?