0.9.6.2-rc2 not allowing Resource Path to change?

Hi!
A little background first... I was handed this beta under these circumstances: Rather than a clean install, I got the files from an existing site and an SQL dump for the tables. The website domain is not propogated yet, so I’m using one of those paths from the server with the tilde and all that. I stuck that sucker in the new site, and things are basically running OK. All standard garden variety Linux on Apache, PHP 5.

But I’ve run into some oddities that I’ve never seen before, and I don’t know if it’s beta-itis, domain weirdness, file permission weirdness, wacked out ASCII files, or ? Some smarter person than me may have some ideas.

In the Manager, I’m unable to edit Resource Path and Resource URL, except for the very end, where you can stick folders beyond the root. Is this by design, or might something be wrong?

I’m also running into the dreaded "upload inhibited" when trying to update files through the manager. The PHP upload settings are just fine. I can force it to work by making any directory i want to edit have 777 permissions. But this doesn’t seem sensible to me.

Any ideas appreciated!
Thanks, Samba

As far as directory permissions go, unless the site is using some kind of suexec, the 777 permissions would be a requirement to be able to have the Manager file manager scripts write to the directories, since they’re running as the Apache user and not the owner user.