Yeah, the collision detection was bumped up to the entire area of the sprite, rather than the hitboxes programmed in the game. I guess it's a glitch in some versions. It's in my copy of Maths & English with Rayman Vol. 3 on PC, but not Vol. 1. This copy of Vol. 1, mind you, is one I only got last August, and it's in a different box from the one I had back in 2000, and from my Vol. 3. I can't remember if my old copy of Vol. 1 had the wonky collisions or not, but I seem to recall being able to shoot antitoons without ducking (though I might be mixing up with Vol. 3).
The life statues issue is one I was not aware of, and must be frustrating! You go out of your way, possibly getting in danger, following this "secret" path, and… nothing!? Though at least it only takes 50 Tings to get an extra life, rather than 100 in the original…
The graphics are easy to explain: it's a simple port of the PC version to the PlayStation.