[dnanian]

There's no way to tell Time Machine to "restore the files that were changed since xxx" without either doing a full restore (using your Leopard DVD) or by locating and restoring every single file that was changed. It's just not how it works. But you can certainly go to the folder where you work and restore the files you were recently working on.

As far as "back up on wake if 24 hours have passed", no -- SD! can't be set to do that kind of backup, no. Sorry.