I don't really understand your problem, but that might be a fault on my end.
However,
1. nowhere in the open did it say I had to download another third party program to render the videos
it never told me I had to run a certain batch from the website either
There is a great invention called Documentation that gives you a detailed walkthrough on how to install Forge, the ReplayMod and even FFmpeg
2. Your buttons look really messy, thats due to ReplayMod not supporting Shaders Mod. As a warning, rendering with shaders won't work either. You can find further information on that in the Documentations.
nowhere in the open did it say I had to download another third party program to render the videos
it never told me I had to run a certain batch from the website either
There is a great invention called Documentation that gives you a detailed walkthrough on how to install Forge, the ReplayMod and even FFmpegIt would probably help if it was in bold or red so it stands out
There is a table of contents on top of the page where you can click through.
With "Buttons" I don't mean the buttons ingame, more like the Speed Slider.
The thing you've explained isn't possible like that. You can either make two Camera Paths and save them in a Keyframe Repository to render the first on, load the next one and render the second one. Using a Post Production Software, you can put them together. Another "dirty" workaround would be something like this:
It would probably help if it was in bold or red so it stands out