I agree with pretty much everything you said. After speaking with advisors, the vibe I got is you can still hurt your chances of getting into NJMS, even with a high GPA. According to them, the adcom knows which courses are "easy" and which courses are "hard," and so if you want to distinguish yourself, you should take mostly (if not all) hard courses and get A's.
As for the advisors in general, I've had very mixed experiences. There are times where they seem very into the students, and very willing to help/offer advice. Other times, they literally take a week or longer just to reply to an e-mail. And then when you finally get a reply, it's obviously half-assed/rushed.
Personally, I'm just trying to make the most of it now by taking courses that interest me and doing the best I can in them. I'm not even going to attempt to tailor my schedule to "hard" or "easy" classes. Beyond that, it'll be what it'll be, I can only hope for the best.
Overall, I definitely regret ever applying to this program. If I were asked by anyone else, I wouldn't recommend it.