@AlexandarSh: The old footer was a bit messy when it had much content, and the centered text was not very user-friendly anyways. The lines belong to each widget, hence they are displayed where the widget ends. You can try sorting the widgets in a different way to change the look a bit. As for the "open post on same page" thing, I can't, sorry.
@MissJay: I'm sure there's a nice widget out there you can use in the footer area. Alternatively, you can add code at the end of single.php, before the comment section. But keep in mind that these changes might be overwritten by possible future updates of the theme, so keep a backup of your changes.