I can answer some of this, I think, having just watched the film.
First - the lack of bodies. While I agree it seems odd that no bodies are seen anywhere, it's not really a plot hole to me. Meaning, it doesn't change the story in any way, if there are bodies laying about, or not (unless of course they re-animate, but this isn't the Walking Dead lol). So you can rip it for saying there should be some dead bodies, no way a city that large is completely vacant, and I would agree, but it doesn't change the plot or the story in any way that I can think of. If the streets have dead bodies in them or not, the fact remains that everyone is dead. (Unless you want to talk about rotting corpses and disease, but that's getting away from the real story.)
They don't try to find evacuees because they are all dead, or at least, that's what they come to believe. According to the recording Ralph found, the earth was blanketed with this poison for five days, it appears almost no one survived. Notice that besides people missing, you also don't see any kind of animals or wildlife (until the end). When Benson arrives, he confirms that he also did not see anyone in his travels prior to cruising up the Hudson. And remember, Ralph drove from somewhere in Pennsylvania to New York at the beginning of the film and he saw no one either.
We are not told how the pigeons survived. We are not told how Benson survived either, but obviously he did. The point of showing you the pigeons, I think, was to show that life still goes on, that nature is going to begin to repair itself (as with the flowering tree branch). I think that was why we don't see the pigeons until the end, so that they would not be a distraction in the middle of the film. (Pigeons are related to doves, I'm not sure if the film-makers were throwing a Noah's Ark homage in there or not.)
There is not lingering radioactivity, I'm guessing, because this wasn't thermonuclear war. Because you're right, 'nuclear winter' and all that was the talk back then, should the US and USSR lob ICBMs at each other. Instead, this was some sort of 'atomic poison' which apparently blanketed the earth for five days, then dissipated. They didn't go into a lot of detail about exactly what it was or even who started releasing it.
I don't think any ships were safe at sea. No one was safe anywhere in the world, unless you were able to hide from the poison. Submarines are a possibility, that is a good point, but I'm not sure how long they can stay under before they have to surface. Or how long ones in 1959 could. Or if they can breathe self-contained air for five days, if they could stay under that long.
As for the president, bunkers, and shelters - those are fair points, I'm not sure how airtight those are. You are right when you say those bunkers and shelters were everywhere in the 50s, but were they airtight? Sarah mentioned she was in a decompression chamber, so we are to understand that that was airtight. Perhaps most bunkers and shelters were not to that extent. They still probably had intakes to breathe the outside air, even underground, and if so that would have been fatal.
Overall I thought it was pretty good. I actually did care for the people. Or two of them at least. Benson was a cad. Ralph was smart and resourceful but plagued by inner demons about his ethnicity it seemed. Sarah was guarded but eventually warmed to him, then recoiled when his race issues surfaced. So I was interested in both of them. Benson was just a POS though lol.
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