Jenny,
Good thread... keep it going. I'm not a beginner, but have not ventured much above the 3rd fret in my time playing... as I find that there's life up there, I want to find more of the same kind of thing you're looking for.

You might want to play with taking a simple F chord and just sliding it up - two frets above its regular position and its a G, up two more gives you an A. You can use it to replace the regular positions and get some nice different voicings.

BTW.. I had missed what you mentioned about taking the D up to the 7th and 9th frets..thats sounds nice. I play Hobo's Lullaby too, how do you use that D trick in it... as an ending or?