RE: support ticket: this type of query might have been assigned a lower priority than someone with problems accessing pages. Have you checked its status lately?

RE: titles: it appears that Mike Weaver has completely customized his journal style, which you can do under "Customize Styles". I suspect more than just the titles, but the Custom Text option was used here, or possibly a custom CSS.

You might want to ask over at style_system as well, as that's the place to ask style questions.