@TheEnglishFlaneur Great feedback. You are only seeing the greyed-out dates as you have already applied and it is a reminder of the dates you have applied for. Anyone else looking at the listing will just see that the listing is ‘reviewing’ and not see the greyed-out dates. I can most definitely pass your feedback along.
This might help with the DM messages:
Can you see the green reply button under my message to you?