Is there any way to get rid of the gray area in iCal? The gray area I'm referring to is the area that's not used, say from 12am to 6am. 

I want to get rid of this area entirely (It's not the color that's the issue). I don't use that space at all, so it means I have to scroll down to schedule something every single time -- seems very counter-intuitive imho.

Edit: Simplified to one question.

Edit: Still no solution, but some workarounds are provided below. An actual solution would be best though. (Not to take anything away from those who contributed).
I can answer 1. Go to preferences in iCal, and set "day starts at" to midnight, and "day ends at" to midnight. Or... whenever you want the grey area not to go. So 8-6 (default I think) will make 8-6 not grey. Here's a screen scrape of how that looks: