1. The top plate on all speaker stands are rather small. You don't need the plate to be the same size as the speaker. It is perfectly stable with that design.
2. If you don't like the little poker things you can always use some rubber furniture isolators or sorbothane dots. I just didn't install them at all on my Sanus stands, went with Blu-Tak instead. My Pangea stands don't have those, they have little felt stickers that go on the stands instead, much friendlier.
3. The Pangea LS300 stands that I really like come in 4 different heights, 36 being one of them, and also 32, so if you go with the 36 it'll put them slightly above ear level, which would likely be perfect. Most stands are designed for people sitting on sofas, not at desk chairs, so that usually accounts for the height difference.
Get the LS300 from Audio Advisor. They are a great company with fast shipping. No returned/damaged products like I've gotten from Amazon, when I got extendable stands that had a warped metal base on one of them. Ugh.
http://www.audioadvisor.com/prodinfo.asp?number=PGLS300