Harry's blasting rod was broken in Blood Rights and there was no mention of it being stronger than a regular stick.

During his Bad Guy Speach in Death Masks, Nick says that the apocalypse is the death of hope. That makes me think that part of the BAT will be Sanya's death... which will probably have me balling my eyes out. I don't think there could possibly be a better Big Damn Hero moment with the swords than the one with Butters, so I think the swords will be destroyed when the last of the coins are gone... balance, you know?

First thing - these are (I think) intentional questions without current explanations that The Big Man is breezing by at the moment in favor of telling the story instead of focusing on the minutia of building the world. Enjoy the story for now and let Jim get to the details when he does. It's probably best to "hand-wave" the confusing Magicy-Science parts if you can... if you can't (a lot of people find it too distracting to allow them to enjoy the book) you may want to leave the series alone for a couple years and return when a few more books in the series have been released. Jim will explain some (probably not all) of those questions as the series progresses.

Second thing - Get a copy of the audiobook. I don't know who finds the people to do Jim's audiobooks, but whoever it is deserves a huge pat on the back. James Marsters (Dresden Files) has been my favorite for a while, but this was my first audiobook from Euan Morton and he's almost as good. It makes pronunciation easy when you read the text version.

Spirearch - just say the two words with no pause. "Spire" - "arch".  Habble is pronounced like "hobble"  with a soft "a" instead of the "o".