Julie Schwartz thought it was a mistake to have Superboy in Smallville, that such a celebrity would naturally gravitate to the big city. I always thought he was wrong in this, and now I realize WHY. Superboy's not Spider-Man, or Batman, or any lesser hero. Superboy can casually go at mach five and knock out all the windows along a street with the vacuum caused by his passage, or could destroy a skyscraper by making a wrong turn. It was probably far, far, safer for him to learn his craft in the country---where if he made a wrong move, he might destroy some crops or farm equipment, no more---than in the crowded city. A teenager has better reflexes than an adult, but he's usually a worse driver, because he hasn't the experience. Similarly, Superboy's mistakes in a crowded city might cause millions of dollars worth of damage and injuries.
I like this idea. It's consistent with the Maggin view that the role of Smallville is to provide a "womb," where he was protected by the anonymity of a small town so Kal-El could develop his powers and training.
Batman may not work as an urban legend, but Superboy actually might.
#2 would be even more interesting. We saw stories where he learned how to fly, and control his powers in other ways---but when did he first learn he could go faster-than-light? More importantly, did he know how to get BACK??? We can imagine the young Superboy trying out how fast he could go, near Earth's moon---only to see everything blurring, as he "warps" faster than light---and then end up around another star, with no reference point to guide him home to Earth. He could travel to several nearby worlds---perhaps a younger Sardath at Rann with an Alanna near his own age, with no real clue that Earth is the next star over---maybe Tamaran---wandering from world to world, getting more desperate---until Abin Sur, the Green Lantern of the space sector at the time, shows up and guides him back to Earth and shows young Superboy how to reference himself vis-a-vis the Milky Way's core and other landmarks.
I like this idea. It brings the Lanterns into the Super-Mythos, something that Maggin and others tried very hard to do. Though Abin Sur at this point would probably be using a spaceship to get from place to place after his encounter with the Empire of Tears (which ironically, was how he died).
There were several jokes in Jim Shooter's STAR BRAND where the wielder of the brand actually got LOST in space, and even when he did find the earth again, he couldn't find his hometown.
Superboy's Super-Vision can conceiveably aid in astronomical navigation. Each star, as a result of different concentrations of elements, gives off different kinds of light, almost like a fingerprint, which can be identified by spectroscopes. Superboy has natural senses that can duplicate a spectroscope, thus he may be able to identify earth's sun in this way.