Hey Shizume, thanks for sharing!
As far as the collections go, well, those two will fall off your record pretty soon so that’s great news. Nothing to do there. I’m not sure if I would do anything about the one that expires in December 2013, or if I would just wait until it falls off as well (unless you’re planning to buy a house soon then yes, I would probably try to do something about it).
It’s already 5 years old so it’s probably not hurting your score much anymore (I would assume). You also have the option of negotiating a pay for delete to get it off sooner, specially if it’s not a large sum. You can also try to dispute it with the 3 credit bureaus, it’s an old collection so if they can’t verify it’s your they have to delete it.
There’s another thread going on that might be helpful, about pay for deletes: http://www.newdirt.org/forums/topic.php?id=36
The 2nd secured card sounds like a good plan. It worked pretty well for me so I recommend it. I think trying to get a higher credit limit for the 2nd one is also a good idea. Then we all just have to wait for these accounts to age to see the benefits.