to your first part:
pubs will never let you directly connect to other connected clients, so the possible connections you have are coming from people lurking on your WIFI network or in the rooms you connect to.

then to your second question.. I believe I made comment about that in the home-page for the room server a while ago (it's a bit sad that you don't see the signup manually link from the get-go... kinda sucks, but there are bigger fires to put out in the code-base before that cosmetic issue gets dealt with)

Screenshot 2021-06-11 at 15.41.49.png

Good luck!

I can reset your password if you want. The not setting a password when you create an account is bit of a bug.
normally when you have an account (and the settings of the room are set to community access only) tthen you can go in and create invites for your friends & family and see room statistics. It's not really relevant for picoroom though since pico-room's access has been set to open (everyone can create accounts and connect)