The title tag is one of the most important on-page factors that Google looks at. Every keyword you have in your title dilutes the value of all the other keywords, so you should stick to as few words as possible, plus maybe your brand name. This is also a good practice from a user experience perspective.

"I like the concept that a directory is good only if you would still want the link if it passed no link juice."

Yeah, I agree that this statement is pretty naive. You shouldn't expect to get much traffic from Yahoo or DMOZ. People use these directories for the link juice and the credibility boost, not traffic. Since both directories editorially approve their links, they still carry a bit of weight (although exactly how much is up for debate).

DMOZ, BOTW, and Yahoo are really the only directories worth submitting to, plus maybe a couple of niche specific directories and local directories. That's like maybe a dozen directories tops.

As long as you keep directory submissions to a minimum, it's not going to get you penalized, so there is no need to worry about "ratios" or anything like that, although you may want to vary your anchor text or stick to your brand name.

The bigger issue is that directory links don't carry that much value, so you'll want to acquire relevant, high authority links outside of directories if you actually want to rank.

Sticky posts can help if they contain content that's relevant to the keywords you're targeting. It's just a way to keep content on your homepage in Wordpress, Google will still see the fresh content you are producing.

The javascript code does not act as a nofollow. It may be causing a problem with OSE's crawler, but it will not have any search impact.