1) You can add buttons to the tool bar to suit your liking. You can also remove those you don't want. This option requires first that you know what buttons are (by reading the docs of course) and then adding them to the proper script. You can easily access that script through the prefs dialogue in K-Meleon.
2) You can modify what, if any, page loads at start-up via the preferences.
3) K-Meleon supports Netscape and Internet Explorer bookmarks via plugins, which you can choose to install or not at install time. Really, it couldn't be any simpler.
Maybe this browser is a little out of your league?
first of all, the next relaease, by all accounts, should have a totally different toolbar set-up, so don't sweat the buttons too much for the moment.
second, i'm guessing that the question about opening HTML by default was regarding what happens when you double-click on a file, not the startup page. to change this, you'll want to change the settings for HTML files under settings>folder options>file types (or similar, depending on your windoze version). maybe there will be a quick-and-simple method to make k-meleon the default browser in future releases (?).