About the page size increase... here is the solution:
Have the normal textbox as you do now, without the added wysiwyg feature... but add an "Edit text in Editor" link next to it. Uppon clicking a pop-up window appears with just the wysiwyg editor. You edit your post, with colors and all... Uppon clicking the save icon the window closes while sending the data into the main window (normal one) where you can continue editting, selecting post icons and all...
Basically the idea would be that you dont load it every time you post, only those times you need it. []/testimages/icons/cool.gif[/]
OK... I confess it, haha! I got this idea from somewhere else... From the Mambo site demo (a php content website management system...) You can see this feature used this way
here. Just quickly sign up, and then click on Submit an Article to see how they did it... very cool!