the first gear stickiness is a known issue with Preludes. the easiest way is to gradually let out the clutch pedal while pushing on the lever... the lever will then fall into place.

what happens is the tranny gear stick just lines up in an off position to where the dog teeth wont mesh. by letting out the clutch a bit, the motor spins the gear stick into a new position, thus allowing the dogs to engage.

the only "problem" issue is with an improperly engineered 5th gear shifter fork that causes grinding when shifting into 5th gear. this does not affect all preludes, tho... and if yours wasnt recalled for it, then it doesnt have that problem.