Second issue is a also strange, once I reboot I am able to run up2date and any rpm command, so I can install packages but after a day or two for no reason these commands just stop. They hang on execution as if they are waiting for something. You can't stop them with CTRL-C either, you have to kill -9 the process. This means I have to reboot my machine if want to install a new package, which isn't as much of a problem now I have things installed but was initially a pain in the bu when I first built the machine.
Your problem is described at https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=73097 and apparently fixed by a later version of rpm. Red Hat haven't released an errata for it, but you can get it out of Rawhide. The 'solution' is, when you've killed rpm, remove the stale locks at /var/lib/rpm/__db.* You may also have to rpm --rebuilddb afterwards, but I've never had to. Craig