c) edit the text of the "products" top menu button (e.g. instead of it saying "products" it should say "gifts" if it's a gift shop I run)
One possible result should be that the top menu is empty and on the left menu one can only see a list of categories. That's all. No "products" button or "contact" button necessary.
i don't know if i understand you but: you can delete all pages from menu you want to hide or edit templates/page.tpl file and remove menu variables a - contact page is default page and it cant be delete, you can add one more hidden menu type and place it there but it will be shown when somebody enter to page which is not exist b - i dont undestand why you want hide it and in (c) you write about changing its name c - you can edit lang/en.php file and change that there, or you can also edit templates/page.tpl and change link there, but lang will be better solution
