Trouble with Gridsby Theme

I have recently migrated to a new host and in transferring data I have lost my previous theme, (cubic), which does not appear to have as many features. I’m happy to use a similar theme, Gridsby, however I have not been able to get it set up as I would like.

Questions
1. I am keen on having the home page filled with pictures from the categories I am using, (there are 6), and then with recent posts. Gridsby is supposed to pick up the images from each post and present it on the home page complete with a link, however the only way I have been able to get it to do that is to make the posts sticky. That is fine for the category headings, but I was hoping to have more dynamic content for new blog posts. Does atone know how I can achieve the layout of Gridbsy as it is advertised on WordPress, or has anyone had a similar issue with this theme?
2. Each category page has a whole host of archived content and posts that should link to it somehow. I am not sure how to achieve this without writing the links in myself, (whig looks messy). Do I need to make the Category Headings pages (not posts) and if so, how do I get the content picked up on each page?
3. The Home page images that I have been able to get to appear, (by making them sticky, as in point 1 above), don’t have headings. Previously on cubic the heading for each page appeared. If it doesn’t appear, people won’t know what the post is about. Any ideas?
4. If this set up isn’t possible on Gridsby, can someone recommend a theme that is easy to set up and has the following features:

– Home page with several images that have headings/text and link through to new posts.
– Home page with several images that have headings/text and link through to categories.
– Ability to have category pages that link through to further content as a sub-home page.

Thank you! You can find my site here.http://27.54.81.33/~theonli1/