Looks to me like you're using Light Gray dye rather than Gray dye.
1. They won't, you craft the village spawn wand later in the game.
2. They actually sound like wolves now (rather than strangled cats), howl as a pack rather than individually if there are multiple in a small area, the sound doesn't penetrate walls or travel long distances without losing volume (this was a big part of their nuisance) and they can't spawn in lit areas anymore.
3. It's one secret feature, I just listed it under all the mods I've been using to make it.
I am rather busy with uni, though finals aren't for another month yet. Honestly the point of this feature being labelled as secret is that it's something never been done before in a pack, and I kinda want to build the suspense and see how long it takes people to find it.
All YAMPST has been capable of since the pack got listed is sending me crash reports, the YAMPST servers can't actually handle the volume of data from the stats it tracks. FYI, those stats are pack installs, launches and playtime - they're just things that let a pack author see how much their pack is being used.
If disabling it causes improvement for you, go for it. It doesn't do anything functionally in the game though, so doubt you'll find any difference.