Hi Kathy,
To your first question, I invite you to consider our Sync Template solution, with which you could pinpoint the Tasks of interest (using a filter) and then synchronize the desired new Task Names (or Durations, Milestones, Priorities, etc.) "out" to those Tasks. Some of the items sync'd can also be done via Bulk Edit, but others (such as Predecessors and Missing Tasks) are too complex, and cannot.
For the approvals, I am not aware of a way to change that default, but have Liked this post so I can learn how it can be done, should anyone else know that trick.
Regards,
Doug