1. 1/2048, twice as likely to be shiny
2. Starter can be shiny, and their shininess shows in the portrait before you pick up the ball.
3. I agree, but for some reason the browser in particular has a real problem with it. The downloadable file is more manageable.
4. I set the Pidgey exp drop very high for testing level up systems and I continue to forget to change it back.
Thank you so much for playing, you're officially the first comment!