Evan,
1. Make sure you clear your cache because this should not happen in 2.2.9
2. you can use custom CSS to remove italic
3. If you go to eventON> settings> sorting and filtering you can select which optinos you need shown on front end
4. go to wp-admin/admin.php?page=eventon&tab=extra and make sure there is a page selected for events page
5. possibly another plugin interfering with eventON
6. At the moment eventON search events is not a featrure but this is something that I am hoping to add in the future.
- Ashan