This is great. I can help fix almost every one of thse problems.
1. Control Panel Settings. Since the settings are already in the table that means you must have ran install_settings.sql. Great. I added additional manual steps to complete the settings update.
Brief directions: Settings won't show until there is a value greater than 0 in the displayorder field. populate that field with a value (I picked max(displayorder) and you are done.
Long directoins:
1. Execute the following query
SELECT MAX(DISPLAYORDER) FROM SETTINGGROUP;
2. Add 1 to the number that is shown and replace the words <i>{highnumber}</i> with the displayed number + 1:
UPDATE SETTINGGROUP SET displayorder=<i>{highnumber}</i> WHERE title LIKE 'viPortfolio%';
What you see after you have uploaded your image is the major issue everybody but me has been getting. That has been part of the reason it hasn't been fixed. I am having an extremely difficult time recreating the problem. Right now there is no fix.
the error message is incorrect. Every time I fix it it somehow gets overwritten by the time I upload to the server. I have gremlins here

So here is the fix, I am going to make sure it will also be fixed in the next release.
open the viPortfolio.php file. On the 6th line you will see
$message="
You have exceeded the 75k file upload limit. If you are
having difficulties optimizing your files, we have multiple
people ready with helpful suggestions.
Thank you.
";
replace everything from line 6 thru line 11 with the following line:
$message = $msg;
This will get you more accurate error message.