I get the distinct impression you haven't done a whole lot of usability testing, and I get that because you're offering a lot of advice that I would have given

I get the distinct impression you haven't done a whole lot of usability testing, and I get that because you're offering a lot of advice that I would have given before I started paying attention to real-world usability and accessibility issues. Being disabled gives one a slightly different perspective. Trust me, horizontal scrolling is a problem for most users, even if it's obvious to you, and having a footer in place to say "this is where the vertical page ends" just exacerbates the situation -- they see the page as unfinished and will hit the refresh button more often than they'll attempt to scroll.