Sorry, but how are you setting "password length" there is no such setting that I know of in 1.4.4.3. Instead you can set the minimum password strength. The repeat password text box will not become enabled until the password strength computation for the password entered is greater or equal to the minimum strength.
The background color of the first password box will change as the password gets stronger. If that does not happen there is probably a javascript error somewhere.
For your second issue, you should look to see if any HTML has been loaded (view source on your browser.) Also look into your server and Zenphoto logs for errors.
It is certainly possible that if the admin pages are not loading fully you would get javascript errors, so these two could be related.