Would like to see these books made into movies.

Non-specifically, I recall a conversation where it's mentioned that millions were killed and Will the narrator says something like 'Millions? My own village of Wherton was reckoned no small place and numbered about two hundred souls,' or similar, and goes on to mention Winchester, the nearest large town being something like fifteen thousand. (Quoting from memory). The Masters' plan seems to have been to reduce the population to the point where it's sustainable, but also largely static, to prevent free flow of seditious ideas and thus organised rebellion. Therefore a forcibly imposed pre Industrial Revolution type of society would seem the only suitable solution, in my opinion.

As to keeping people out of the 'Great Cities of the Ancients' even Will and Jack at the beginning of the first book, felt that their den in an old electricity sub-station was rather daring. Superstition and a couple of generations of elders saying 'You don't want to go there, those are evil places, where all the sickness and wickedness went on.' would have dissuaded most people from going there.

Laying waste to great areas without permanently poisoning them might have been possible with neutron weapons, and/or extremely persuasive propaganda. If the areas mentioned were also heavily patrolled as soon as it was safe, and any intruders killed or captured, that would give rise to local 'ghost stories' and taboos. It's also implied that one of the Masters' Cities came close to being nuked before the Earth was totally subjugated, by a nuke launched from a SSBN.

Just my thoughts, hope it helps!

Whit sad old loser'd be thick enough to don thon get-up?

Yes, according to what Ozymandias tells Will in both the book and series, many people were killed. As to the ruined cities being off limits, in the book it says that when you got Capped, you were then thinking the cities were not allowed to be visited. The Cap was a brainwashing thing anyway.

As to the lands that were laid waste, in the third book it mentions that. That had to do with the fact that the Masters built three cities on Earth, which were considered the center parts of control. Now the Tripods could travel a great distance away from the cities, but there had to be limits, so I guess when the Masters took over the world and built the cities, they had to lay waste the areas that they couldn't build a city near so the Tripods could patrol it. I hope this makes sense.