A - I am not aware of any control over the 'inactive split viewheader' colour, and just in case it was undocumented, I've tried things such as InactiveHeaderBackground="FF00FF" and DisabledHeaderBackground="FF00FF", but they didn't work. I'm guessing that this is something the devs would need to add to the skinning engine for us... Matt?
B - Where would you like to move them to? Their location in the GUI is again, hard coded, at the end of the progress bar there, but you can effect their spacing by adding transparent 'dead areas' to the graphics. In order to stop the dead area from being treated as part of the button, thus activating the button when the mouse is inside the dead space, you need to specify in the xml that there are five images. The first three are the current, mouse over and mouse down graphics, four is empty, and five represents the active area of the buttons in black, as demonstrated in the attached zip file. So, adding dead space to the left of the various 'repeat' button graphics should effectively push the end of the progress bar away from the buttons. Aside from that, we don't have much in the way of control over the placement of these buttons.
C - Again, placement of the expansion arrows appears to be hard coded.
Not much positive in my reply unfortunately, but there it is. If it helps, I knew right away when I looked at your skin image that the playing now split was the inactive one, and the three buttons
appear to be pretty good like they are. I always find those one of the hardest skinning jobs to get right as I find it difficult working zoomed all the way in on such small images. Your 'arrows' request just made me smile, as it reinforced my feeling that this skin is going to be good... attention to detail and all that, right? I'd never bumped into the need to move them to be honest, but still, I did try messing around with margins and transparent bits for a quick test before replying, but no joy, other than some mild amusement as the skinning engine attempted to fulfil my demands... I managed to get the arrows waaay outside the menu itself, but could not force them any further in.
-marko
Edit: Here's an old thread from back in 2008 where a request was made for seperate control over the inactive split viewheader area, including the tab text etc... Sometimes, things in our MC world move very slowly
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=45393.0