The batallion commander is the guy who carries the flag (take it, drop it close to you on the ground, so you carry it around)
map size: what i agree is that it's currently boring as inf to walk around. my ideas are a cart that you can hop on as infantry, being pulled by a horse and building a church tower (=chapel) as a remote respawn point. if neither of those works, i guess reducing the map size is the only way to fix it. last resort, though
as for the formula:
base money = 1000
every player in the game brings his level in, so, average, level 28*30players, for example
then, mines bring gold: base 800, 1st up: +750, 2nd: +585, 3rd: +420, 4th: +255
also, every construction that's not a building (walls, towers, etc) costs upkeep (1% of total income)
the money is shared between all players in the game. formula might change (heavily) in the future.
as for the other suggestions - many are user interface suggestions which make sense and just have not been added due to lack of time. etc etc