1) Ahh I see what you mean – these should follow what you have set in the WooCommerce > Settings > Product > Display options – if you have these set correctly (thumbnails) then you’ll need to run the Regenerate Thumbnails plugin.
2) I understand, unfortunately due to the reason mentioned previously, unless WooCommerce change the setup, this is unlikely to work without that initial show.
3) I adjusted the CSS that you had in the Theme Options, and also added it to the theme for the next update.
Thanks,
– Ed