I am new to K2 and am trying to disable the avatars altogether. Where is this done?Also I would like to have the login box to display before the comments area for visitors. Is there a way to do this?Thanks for any help you may offer.

Check the k2 paramaters and hide image(avatar) there
The login is a module and is usually published in a template position.
publish it, click on the registar link, copy the url from the browzer
Create a k2 override, and edit item.php, find the comments block and insert an a href tag there with the registar url