re: Various Financial Questions

You can avoid the tax hit of rolling your 401k over by moving it to a traditional IRA. The Traditional vs Roth IRA debate in this sense matter with your age. For example, the traditional IRA will be fully taxed when you withdraw and you need to compare to initial tax to put the 401k into a Roth vs. the tax of the traditional plus earnings. I'm fairly sure the Roth IRA will beat the traditional but if you don't have the cash to pay the initial tax the traditional may win.

You can leave the 401k as is but lose the fund management since you are no longer an employee of the company. IRAs also have greater flexibility than 401ks.