A Question Of Balance, TRS vs TS? Options

[Jaysee]

Hi, at *long* last all my gear has arrived and I'm currently trying to figure out quite where everything should go. A couple of fairly basic questions before I plug it all together so that I dont electrocute myself and fry my new G5 etc:

The set up comprises a pair of Tapco S5 monitors, a little Tapco 6306 mixer, a Kurzweil 2661 kboard, EMS VCS3, nord modular. G5 2Ghz with very sexy new style flat 20" cinema display, DP, Maudio delta44 card and breakout box, Maudio midisport 4x4.

I'm a bit baffled by the fact that almost every input and output on almost all of the equipment seems to be in the unfamiliar form of *TRS* stereo balanced jack sockets.

In premidi years gone by I always used 'ordinary' presumably *TS* mono jackleads from my gear into an amp or submixer onstage when I was playing, so I dont really understand why the modern gear uses stereo connectors for every socket. Even the main L+R outs on the synth are TRS.
...surely that doesnt mean there are 4 ch of information, like Left(left and right) plus Right(left and right) I'm a bit perplexed. I've read a few definitions of balanced vs unbalanced but am still pretty confused. Can I use plain ol' mono jack to jack leads to connect everything up even though most of my gear seems to require these mysterious TRS sockets, I've waited such a long time (4months for some items!!)for these fancy new toys to arrive I dont want to f**k it all up before I start, so I'm a bit nervous.
Also: Any recommendations on speaker stands for the two Tapco S5s, they're small but quite heavy. I'd keep them to the L and R of the flat panel display as that has a very small footprint, but I'm not sure if its bad for an LCD display to be near strong magnetic fields, I know it isnt recommended with CRT.
God there some really silly unexpected ergonomic problems to get around. like if I stand the kurzweil on the lowest 'rungs' of my OTT ancient three tier keyboard stand, my view of my slick new monitor is partially obscured by the damned stand!!!
I ought to lie down, cheers, jaysee.