About your problem with the Tell a Friend feature, the link that appears in the e-mail you received appears correct, i.e. article_info.php?articles_id=X would be the correct way to reference Article X.
So I'm not sure why it might be taking you back to the Tell a Friend page (which is tell_a_friend.php).
My suggestion would be to go back through the installation instructions for the Tell a Friend page and check that you got them all. The irony is that this page is the most lengthy to modify in the whole contribution and it's only one small aspect of the Article Manager <grrr>.
Also, when testing your Tell a Friend link, make sure you close all browser windows first (might help?).
Let me know how you get on, someone else may have some ideas too.