good deal, keep at it.

Does blender allow point-by-point and/or plane-by-plane modelling? If so, you can always create a high res model to begin with, then reduce the number of polys until it words for the game. Just a suggestion.

I don't really understand what you're aming at (prolly because of lack of knowledge), but you can delete a verticle and then make an edge between verticles further away.
I'm sure there are tons of features I don't know about in Blender.

yea, that's pretty much what I'm talking about.

Either deleting the points at the end of triangles (thereby making bigger triangles) and/or deleting the actual triangle itself. Bleh, nevermind. I'm sure you'll figure it out.