Ghost Whisperer/Headscratchers

How exactly does Melinda's store stay in business? We rarely if ever see her make a sale, and half the time she closes up shop to do her ghost investigations.
- Guys walk past the store, see her in a low-cut dress, and are compelled to give her money. No bull.
  - That, and she has an assistant. Actually, it always makes me smile when Melinda walks up to some guy she's never met before, says his name, and says she needs to speak to him. They never react in a way most men would in real life, if an attractive woman in a revealing dress approached them in that way. It's like they don't even notice.
Grandview seems to be a middle-sized town, and Melinda has helped families per episode over the span of five seasons. So how is it that people have no idea about her powers until they take their help? No gossip?
- Maybe they all get horribly murdered? That way Melinda gets business and Grandview gets a few houses to bring in new people.
- It would hard to take her seriously, even with gossip, considering how she's dressed and how crazy she acts.
The simple fact that dead people are relaying messages to their loved ones through Melinda, and she never quotes them verbatim. This bugs me right into the mountains.
- I know what you mean, but it would be tedious for the TV audience to have to listen to Melinda repeating everything they've just heard the ghost say. She often paraphrases though. Maybe she fills in the details later.
- Yeah, that always annoyed me. But I got past it by assuming that she quotes them correctly as the show is fading out, the writers just don't want to waste precious minutes having her repeat something we just heard.
If she never makes any money from her shop, and her husband constantly changes jobs, how the hell can Melinda afford to look like a supermodel on the runway/high-class hooker all the time?
- She is a high-class hooker, the store is just a front.
How did Melinda so cavalierly accept that it was Jim in Sam's body? I mean, she can see him, but she was still kissing another man! And what did the neighbors think? Didn't any of them notice!
- Well, she has a reputation as a kook who claims to talk to ghosts and who walks around showing off her cleavage. Presumably nothing would surprise people anymore.
Why does this show drop all of their story arcs or poorly explain them? Just when we're getting somewhere with season one's hat guy, that suddenly ends without another word. The half-brother seemed like it was made up on the spot, Grandview's underground never gets revisited after that one encounter with the red-eyed man, and we have one episode to introduce a possible new arc with that ghost-who-wasn't and then it's ignored for the rest of the season. This just bugs me.
There was an episode where a child was killed on an abandoned Army post and the post is shown not only w/ parts and tools left there but vehicles and even military ORDNANCE laying around it. WTH??
How did her husband go from being a paramedic to a doctor in less than five years?
How does a woman that owns an antique shop that apparently doesn't sell many antiques afford multiple outfits that cost thousands of dollars each and always have flawless hair and makeup?