hey SF, ummm for your first question, i have my brushes sorted and grouped in different subfolders and load them only as needed, this saves on the overflow of brushes.

one thing i find helpful when you have a lot of brushes and don't want to always have them loaded, make a "jpg" file of the brushes (sort of the thumbnails you'd see in the brush palette) this way you can find the right brush you want and load only that set.

as for your second question, i'm running ver7 but it should be similar:

1. Open the brush palette (if it's unavailable make sure you've selected the "brush" tool)

2. Click on the "Brush Tip Shape" option (it doesn't have a "checkbox" so alot of people don't even know it has settings you can modify)

3. Enter the value (degree) you want the brush to rotate (you can also grab and rotate the "arrow" it you are more of a visual person and don't know the degree of rotation you want)

hope it helps (...and that someone else hasn't already answered you while i was making my pretty screen capture visual ;l))

:)
retrocity