Two weeks now from my extraction and I'm still in pain.

You can eat almost whatever you want so long as you're comfortable. I wouldn't eat anything like chips or nuts that can break into small pieces and get lodged in the sockets. If you're feeling ok, you should be fine to move on to more solid foods.

You appear to be healing well. Placing molar bands in that area shouldn't be a problem and won't affect the healing. 

Three things will determine the amount of pain: The amount of damage to the tissues that was required to get the tooth out.The amount of infection that was present to begin with. If you leave an infection to progress to point where all the tissues are swollen, there’s pus everywhere and the b...