For the file display area, put the links in the header on the other side, make them bigger, or just remove them entirely. More often it confuses people.
Put the gear symbol on the header of the file display area so it is larger and have commonly used links on the header that is normally in the dropdown. If the user needs to select something other than the most used links, then when they click the gear symbol, the rest of the selections appear. Make the text bigger.
There is a set height of the rows, so maybe the icons and text could be bigger too.