Is there a way to combine a bunch of different staves into only two (left and right hand for piano)...i remember i did it a few times in finale notepad, but that was three years ago and i'm pretty sure its probably different from printmusic...

Nope. You can only do that in Finale now ("Makemusic!" is literally, "destroying" all of the programs except Finale... trying to get people to buy Finale <_<).

Oh, and next time, post in the "Composition Program Help" thread in the Compositions forum.