To move to SSD. There is a reason a HDD will slow as you make the partition bigger so without getting into this deeply, the answer is yes, that was expected as the zones as you progress deeper into the HDD slow down as there are less sectors per track.
As to the programs that don't run, usually the uninstall, reinstall fixes that.
I recently enlarged the C drive on my PC with spaceI freed up on an existing partition "E drive" using "Minitool Partition Wizard". Everything went according to plan and there were no issues resizing the drive. All drives are reported as being healthy in Windows disc management and I've done a check disk command with no errors found. However there's a few programs that run a lot slower now and a couple that don't run at all. Has anyone run into a similar situation and does anyone have a suggestion on how to fix this?

Chowhound
Comic Vine
GameFAQs
GameSpot
Giant Bomb
TechRepublic