Yes, it's the same and should start with NXT- (so something like NXT-KTVK-UYXK-W5YK-8C48E) form.
The public key issue will be resolved soon because we're going to make it optional.
In principle it forced you to announce your public key, but it also makes it much harder for new users to get started...
This site should be helpful in activating that account, by the way:
http://jnxt.org/key/Thanks. That site got it working. Maybe it should be in the OP?
Don't know if this is mentioned elsewhere in the thread, but I've spotted another potential issue from a new user standpoint. When I went to sign into the wallet with my passphrase, I had a small typo and ended up accidentally creating an entirely new wallet. This wasn't immediately obvious (especially as I was expecting the passphrase to be rejected if I entered it incorrectly.
If I understand how your brain wallet system works, perhaps it's impossible to avoid this. Unfortunately it's definitely going to lead to people accidentally creating new wallets and then either failing to notice (if zero balance) and potentially sending new funds to the wrong address, or freaking out because they think their funds have vanished or been stolen because they're signed into a different wallet.
This isn't intended as a complaint, but as an attempt to help. I work teaching computers and technology to non-technical people and so am always trying to look at technology I'm using from
their viewpoint so I can be a better teacher, so stuff like this leaps out at me.
Edit: One other thing - I get prompted to update to the new version but then it fails to connect to the update server.
