It is a weird bug... Hold the nook in landscape and you be able to scroll through the apps in the market.EDIT: Also, I'm also having the Market issue where it only lists 11 results. Not sure why that is.
I think the modified 1.1 on XDA is just the stock rom but with root built in. so flashing that is mucheasier than going back to stock then rerooting. But I am not 100% sure.
If you have a spare uSD card, you can burn froyo or honeycomb and boot into it to check it out. I actually prefer the stock rom because the read to me function for childrens books only works on that rom and not the nook app available in the market... and I fear my daughter would slit my throat in the night if it didn't have that. She is a very evil 3.5.
The stock rom had worked fine for what I use it for, so I haven't felt any need to install another to the internal memory.
I think foulkey's widgets are simi clock. I prefer beautiful widgets as there are dozens of skins. It is not free though.