1. That's because by default textareas in IE have a vertical scroll bar. Eg. try this
<textarea id="Textarea1" cols="30" rows="10" tabindex="1"
nospell="true">hiii</textarea>
gives you a non spell checked textbox, with a y scroll bar.
If you explicitly remove it, eg.
textarea id="rswit_compare1" cols="30" rows="10" tabindex="1" style="overflow-y:auto">hiii</textarea>
then even for our textbox the scrollbar is removed.
So I think it's just a browser difference.
2. I don't see any in my test, it could be specific to your page design. Could you create a runnable mockup and send to me please?
Thanks
Jim
-your feedback is helpful to other users, thank you!