In version 7 you see "pushable" commits, in version 8 you see "ahead" commits because from a branch perspective this is usually more reasonable. As you have highlighted, this is only a problem for new branches without a remote counterpart, because they are "ahead all commits". On the other hand it's correct and showing pushable commits only in this case seems wrong to me.

An option will be present in the next 8.1 preview build. You can already give the functionality a try in latest build 9063: Help|Check for Latest Build

I've uploaded SmartGit 8.1 Preview build 9059 which will detect renames for added/removed and even untracked/missing files. Commit and Discard commands will be able to work with the rename file pair, all other commands will simply work on the added (or untracked) file. The entire integration is probably not perfect yet, so please let me know about possible problems.

If you don't know the location in the file, it will be hard to locate the change even with Perforce, I guess. Also, have a look at the two-panes approach of DeepGit:

http://www.syntevo.com/deepgit/

Given the functionality which is already there, can you please open a new topic detailing how you would want to have Push to Gerrit improved?

You can see the current branch also in the Branches view (by default left-hand, too). I guess you will still have this visible even when working with a single repository?

There is a already a Push To Gerrit action since version 8: https://www.syntevo.com/doc/display/SG/Gerrit

How do you resolve this problem using gitbash?

I'm not sure whether there is anything left to do in SmartGit: you have to create the gitolite repository using gitolite functionality, then you will change the URL using Remote|Properties (as you have already used yourself).