I agree, the moons and rings should definatly have some sort of effect on the game, and not just be something pretty to look at.
There are several ideas on the table right now, so we'll see what emerges as the one we'll use.
As for the rings rotating, we actually had that in before the Beta, but there was some shadow flickering (you'll notice the planet casts a shadow on the ring) so we took it out. For some reason ideas that are good on paper jsut don't look how you'd expect 
The "range upon loading" problem will definatly be top on our priority list...several other players have had this problem.
Thanks for the great feedback, and keep the suggestions coming...hopefully you'll update the game one week and see one of your ideas in the game