Customize and upgrade the write page

I’m trying to create a community site where anyone can write posts. I would like to know two things:

1) How to remove some of the options off of the “Write Post” page, like the custom fields, time stamp and discussion boxes. I want a very straight forward write post page.

2) I would also want a very user friendly way to add photos to posts. The default thing in wordpress 2.05 doesn’t seem very intuitive and there is no options for galleries.

I’ve spent many hours searching for help on these topics but don’t really know what I should be using. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!