Missing setting subpanels, plus others

Hi,

Okay, I’m really frustrated. I’m missing several subpanels on my dashboard, including the setting one, appearances, and a few others. I want to attach subpages to my Home page, and the Home page won’t accept any subpages, but other pages will. From what I can figure out, if I delete the home page, and then replace it w/another page with the same permalink, it might work, but I can’t do that, either. Did my boss give me a cut rate download of this program? Help, anyone?

Jody