[Rhyme]

Okay, I'll take on the Red Matter plot holes.

Red matter is a new experimental synthetic matter or recently discovered natural phenomenon that is still not very well understood in Spock Prime's time.

Some properties of Red Matter:

Energy does not correlate with Mass.
It is highly stable, and therefore, "igniting" Red Matter is difficult to achieve.

Any reaction of Red Matter, no matter how large or small the quantity, will create a singularity of about the same size. (Hence, Spock's plan to stop the Super Nova failed because he himself didn't realize that it would take several red matter singularities to prevent Romulus' destruction.) They only need a small amount to start a singularity, so Nero only uses a little bit to destroy each planet, he's waiting to use more.

That or you could say that Red Matter is in a inverse relationship to energy. The larger the amount of Red Matter, the more stable it is and the harder it is to create a singularity. That's why the black holes that swallowed the Narada were smaller than the one that destroyed Vulcan: more red matter was used.

Because the substance is so stable, getting it to cause a singularity is a difficult process. With Spock's knowledge, it would be easy to use red matter to destroy a whole planetary system, though he hasn't quite figured out how to stop a star from going nova. Nero, who is not a scientist, doesn't understand how to use the stuff properly, so he resorts to his natural assumptions about planetary demolition, drill a hole in the rock and drop the bomb down the hole. For some reason, this process works (something to do with planetary gravity wells and subspace), at least well enough for Nero's purposes.

Wow is my nerd ever showing... and I'm not even a big fan of Trek.