Nazalassa

Possibly. @How are you?

N -7 I think it's a new record for the year!

N -2 'THATS NOT FUNNY!!' * laughs uncontrollably *

I do, indeed, exist. What about @Dakota?

No, they do. If they had no drag, they would have no lift. However, heat shields have a damn huge lift-to-drag ratio, meaning they produce a lot of lift and very little drag. If you are only moniroting your drag with the red arrows from aero forces overlay, then it's likely that you did not see the drag from the heat shields. I suggest, if you did not do that yet, that you go into the debug menu (alt-F12), section 'physics', then 'aero', and enable 'show aero info in part menu' or whatever this option is called. Then right-click on one of the heat shields. You should see how much drag it generates, and possibly how much lift. If you need further help, it would be good to add a screenshot of the craft with the part action window open..

Flying hill

N -1 How about yes?

Fuelled hill

Well, they may as well use both. But the point is, if it's shielded, it isn't taken in account into aero calculations, which means it will have neither one nor the other. No drag, no lift. The elevons should just not be shielded, and they'll work fine.

N 0 Would be fair that us negatives win 8 times in a row, no? :)

The heat shields have to be angled 45o forwards from the downwards position. That is, the curved part should be facing front-down and the rear part should be facing rear-up. Dragless planes are quite different from regular ones, which use drag to turn. Thus it is normal that a dragless craft turns differently, if at all. If you want more regular-plane-like controls, consider adding a vertical control surface, like an elevon, and a horizontal one, somewhere where they are not shielded. Then you can use them like normal plane control surfaces.

Do kraken drives count towards 2. or 3. ?

No, they will be aerodynamically 'shielded', so the game forbids deploying them, air-intaking them, etc. Robotic parts work though, but they can't change the shielding of any part: if they were shielded at launch, they will remain so, even if you use a piston to push them out of the fairing.

Actually, any engine plate would work. You can offset things outside if they are attached to a node of the engne plate (except the one that hangs mid-air), and they will experience no drag.

The SSTO speeder is quite old and I can't test it right now, but that's weird. iirc it worked for me. Maybe try downloading it again? Indeed they do. Make sure the engine plate has its fairing enabled, else it won't shield anything. Are you using FAR? In that case, both ships will likely not work, due to how FAR simulates shielding and aerodynamics in a much different way than stock KSP.