The particles at the top of the waterfall basically just hide the seam where the waterfall (and thus texture panning) starts. Although, I was originally going to remove it once I made the transition less noticeable, I found that I actually preferred the spray at the top as well.
The bolt counts for levels will be more uneven than Spyro's, because bolts are always worth 1, and I won't be adding or removing many bolts to reach arbitrary totals. Someone made a spreadsheet of how many individual gem items there are in Spyro, and it's even more uneven, like 78, 59, and 107, to name a few.