Well done, Mike.Ryan! If you want to know, I voted for you.
Out of interest, who voted for whom? I'd like to see that each week, instead of just seeing the winner and runners-up.
One the gradient tool you should see a bit up the top of the screen like this: :AllColorChannels: Well, click that to change it to :AlphaChannel: and draw your gradient.
1) Just do the gradient/line/whatever on a new layer, and change the blending mode of that.
2)If by "bitmap" you mean an image, there's a plugin for this, let me find it for you a second.
The first one can be solved like this:
Open the A4 template.
Add a new layer.
Draw the circle.
Use Layers->Rotate/Zoom
Turn Tiling on.
Adjust until you are happy.
I would say for the L->R/Z bit, make the circle as big as the whole page, then open R/Z, turn tiling on and use the zoom feature until you have enough circles.
Erm, well funnily enough I did just post one... Anyway, what exactly do you mean?
EDIT: Never mind. Anyway, I'm no good with plugins, so don't ask me for my opinion. Which would be Yes, of course.