For the ampersand or other characters you want to show as GALs, please see
http://www.thevbgeek.com/showthread.php?t=3964
For "Billy Boat" auto-linking in one thread but not another thread, are all the forums checked in the ACP ->
GAL
-> Categories -> click the Sponsored Ads link (not sure if it is Sponsored Ads as the category name in the screenshot is hard to read)?