Are you sure you installed the Joomla 2.5 version of the modules? There are definitely a lot of parameters for just about each one that should help you customize things mostly how you want. CSS may still be needed for some changes though.
To verify that you're using the 2.5 versions, when you're looking at the XML files, it should start with an <extension> tag instead of <install> tag.
Hope that helps, but if not, let us know!
Alex