Ok, if you wanted REALLY detailed answers to your questions, here they are:
1. The boat ride that everyone is referring to is the Discovery Boat ride that traversed the Discovery River, which circled Discovery Island. Oringinally, the designers of the boat ride wanted it to be a REAL Jungle Cruise. However, in addition to a great spiel and exotic (real) animals to look at, there would also have been a "preview for Beastlie Kingdomme" (original spelling), that would have involved a giant Audio-Animatronic dragon emerging from his cave and billowing fire at the boat. But guests would not be out of the woods yet, for the boat would have also been shaken and stirred by the Leviathan in a thrilling action sequence (think Catastrophe Canyon) and dodged geysers near the new Asia expansion, while guests would have gazed upon a feeding dinosaur at the edge of Dinoland. Sounds fun, doesn't it? Well, unfortunately, things did not quite turn out so fun. First, budget cuts did not allow the Dragon or the Leviathan to be included. The Dragon was replaced by a cave with smoke billowing out of its mouth. The exotic animals were not to be included as well, but the dinosaur stayed simply because is was a figure of Aladar, plugging Disney's latest movie "Dinosaur." So guests were left with pretty much nothing. The boat ride opened as Animal kingdom did in 1998, but promptly closed six months later because guests were furious about waiting 45 minutes for such a snoozefest. It was then replaced by the "Radio Disney Cruise," which, as you can imagine, was even worse. Not only a snoozefest, but a shameless plug for Disney's latest teen stars like Hilary Duff. The boats have been closed ever since, with no hint of replacement. Now, what they SHOULD do to the boats is put back all of the original action sequences they were SUPPOSED to get. If not, then put characters or alliagtor wranglers or SOMETHING entertaining on those boats, because there is an attraction just laying dormant in a park that is notorious for not having enough attractions!
2. MissM was right on for this one. Instead of a Pooh playground, they should build the Little Mermaid dark ride that was originally planned for Disneyland Paris. It would fit so much better, be more popular, more merchandise potential, on and on and on. And Finding Nemo has been mentioned as a themed overlay for the Living Seas (replacing the Little Mermaid overlay as was originally conceived), and is now being considered as a themed overlay of the Submarine Voyage at Disneyland.
3. Beastlie Kingdomme's story is WAY too long, so here's the Cliff Notes version: BK was planned to fit in where Camp Minnie/Mickey is now, with three attractions: a dragon-themed roller coaster, a Fantasia-themed boat ride, and a Unicorn-themed maze. It was also to have some unique shops and restaurants, such as the Mother Goose shop. BK was very much going to be a part of Animal Kingdom opening day, so much so that dragons have appeared on park maps and around the entrance plaza, and there is a "Unicorn" section in the parking lot. However, due to budget cuts (natch), Imagineers were forced to choose between Dinoland and BK, and (of course) they chose Dinoland. Now, BK was supposed to be a "later expansion" to replace Camp Minnie/Mickey (which was supposed to be a temporary land), but none of the executives wanted to open Mickey's wallet and give them the money to do this. All the while, guests mercilessly complain about Animal Kingdom not having enough attractions.
4. LilDucky was right about this one; no fireworks due to animals. They COULD have had a grand nighttime parade in the Electrical Parade/SpectroMagic tradition, but whoever planned the layout of the park did not make the walkways wide enough to support such a parade. Naturally, the slick executive types have used this as an excuse as to why Animal Kingdom closes so early (they say the animals need their beauty rest), even though they actually close the park early because people run out of things to do by around 3 p.m. or earlier.
