Recently, a patch was pushed that resolved my missing characters, so that’s good. 
As for your missing “View Profile”, that should also be patched. Try logging completely out of the forums and back in. So far that seems to have worked for those who reported back.
As for the link, yeah, that’s a restriction of the three trust levels. You can however, type out a link like normal, then use the Preformatted Text button (the one that looks like </> in the button bar), and it will let you post the link. It won’t be clickable, but it will at least let you post it.
For example, this thread’s link would like:
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/list-of-selectable-posting-characters-is-90-missing/20817/
Here’s a great intro-guide to the new forums: