I'm not an expert or anything, but on my server, I was having same problem with choosing char and getting booted to Server Select. After pondering, I realized I have Win2k and need to do something with ZoneNT.exe, so what I did was started world.exe, booted up 5 zones, then executed ZoneNT.. it didn't seem to do anything.. but I got in. Perhaps dumb luck? Perhaps worth a try.
As for GM commands, you need to flag yourself higher. Download EQAdmin from the site, and find your account, flag it 255.
That'll give you access to all commands.
You'll get all the # commands and all the GM / commands.
Hope that helps~