Assistance with debugging Magento errors

General information for the website: B2B website
Description of requirements/features: I need some assistance with debugging a magento site with a couple of errors.

Firstly, after moving the site from a development domain to the live domain (on the same server) I cannot set the file permissions to allow magento connect manager to work - when I try to install an extension from connect manager or try to back up the site from the same I get a permissions error:

"CONNECT ERROR: Please check for sufficient ftp write file permissions.
Your Magento folder does not have sufficient write permissions, which downloader requires."

I have set the folder permissions to be:

root: 777
downloader (and recursively into directories only) 777
downloader/config.ini 666
media 777
media/downloadable 777
var 777
app/etc 777
app/code/community 777
var/cache 777

Secondly, I have problems creating an order in the adminstration area, so it’s not possible to order at backend. Not via Sales->Order->New Order or by Customer->Create New Order.

There are also some javascript and CSS errors at the backend.

Please give me details of your work in Magento - particularly in going outside the regular scope of the system.
Extra notes: