No doubt you are getting better but try making your backgrounds more elaborate. Heck, you could start off with a black background, apply a lighting effect, hit a filter or 2, make a gradient overlay, and BAM...you got yourself a nice background....and all without using brushes. But like I said, you are definitely getting better. Cropping is good and I kinda like the outer glow. As far as text, use www.dafont.com to download tons of fonts.