Yes, its not obvious that is makes a difference until you look at the code and see that the order has changed.
a) Try setting the text wrapWidth to something like .3 (see explanation)
b) It looks like default and only units for Slider are height units. You just need to figure out what units correspond. Norm units on the Y axis are twice that of height units e.g., position y=.5 in norm units is y=.25 in height units.