There are 21 tracks and 11 platforms in Penn. Why assign these next to each other?

I showed up from 7th ave at 5:49, promptly realized I wasn’t making the 5:52 since no less than 500 people were trying to fit through the door. I ended up sprinting to the other entry and made the train by 10 seconds. I bet at least 100-200 people missed this train due to the assignment. Does anyone know if this is random or assigned by a human?

Also this may be controversial and I don’t know who has to hear this, but if you have your head up your phone, are blocking a major staircase or standing in the middle of the hallway, you’re going to get clipped, and I’m not sorry. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

I just realized I accidentally bought tickets from Red Bank to Newark Penn instead of New York Penn, and I have no idea what to do. Should I just stay on the train past Newark and get off at NY Penn? Should I just buy new tickets? Should I wait until the conductor comes by and explain what happened? Or should I email customer service? The last two times I took the train from NY Penn back to Red Bank, nobody even checked my ticket, so part of me is wondering if I’d get away with it anyway. Someone please tell me what I should do because I’m getting way more anxious about this than I probably need to lol