You won't kill yourself but you might kill your core's VREG. Typically you'd wanna feed it with 7V - 10V. If you have a heatsink on your 7805 and preferably no CS this might well work, but the 7805 will get pretty warm. What you can to is to put an 7809 (+ caps) in between the +12V and J1 of the core. Grounds go together. Do that as close to the psu as possible and only once (star-wiring).
Wilba and I have ruled that out already. This is all very odd ;) This is an issue that I had recently as well (after upgrading to version 1d). Only happens very rarely and only after the initial powerup, so a power off-on cycle fixes it. I haven't had a closer look at what might cause that tough.
This is technically doable (worst case: with some extra programming) but why? A range from 0..127 is not that big that you'll have noooo idea where you are on a fader. The fader itself is pretty good visual feedback...
Did you check the price? Usually for one-offs at that size shipping your own material is gonna be more expensive than getting the whole thing from them.
6N138s are kinda sensistive and a fair component to blame when MIDI In isn't working. Get a new one (they're not that hard to find) and this time - socket it and never ever ever solder an opto-coupler without sockets again. Actually - unless you have an incredibly good reason to never ever ever solder an IC, but always use sockets.
That's correct actually pin #24 is potx and I am not sure about what voltage it should/could have. 14 Vss - 28 Vdd should be 12V as you measured. Check your soldering. Better yet - post pictures.
Vedge: That's good thing to do - if you look at the pokey board I have a software controllable clock divider on it, which comes in handy for octave shifting and other fun stuff. The chips are pretty stable at all sorts of different clock speeds.