Welcome! I'm a relative newbie here too, and I would say no it is not normal to have pain between your shoulder blades. I would guess you need some sort of handlebar adjustment, which your LBS should do for free. When I bought my old road bike back in the dark ages, I remember they had to give me a narrower handlebar, and a shorter stem, probably b/c I am small. Your hands should be placed about the same distance apart as your shoulders with your elbows slightly bent when you're in the drops, I think. Someone else I'm sure will chime in on this.

Regarding the brakes, all I can say is that I just got a hybrid for toting the kids around, and that thing stops WAY faster than my road bike...I was thinking that it was b/c my road bike has such old brakes & technology, but it may be that it is that way on purpose.

HTH