turn down the bass!
(1) Try turning down the bass on your headphones. I try to mix using the treble, because the start of the kick is higher pitched (all that 'boom' is distracting). Actually I usually listen to hi-hats or claps to beatmatch.
In this respect I find some d+b easier to mix because there's plenty of hihat and snare going on (Also, they are usually in very strict time, and the main percussion sounds [esp the snare] are more varied from record to record, so it's easier to distinguish the two tunes when in the mix.)
(2) ukcoolat, I've had a similar problem with a Todd Edwards tune (I used to like quite a bit of garage). A lot of the percussion was subtley out-of-time - it sounded very cool and funky, but was a git to mix. I had to stop trusting my instincts (i.e. hihat A came in slightly before hihat B, so I intuitively wanted to slow down tune A) and force myself to only listen to a part that was always in time (e.g. the first kick of the bar).
(3) Merc, not sure what you mean by a 'reversed kick' - this would sound a bit dodgy. Kicks are often reversed as a 'fill-in', e.g. at the end of an 8-bar phrase, but the main kick sound is not generally reversed. Actually, an offbeat hi-hat (e.g. one that comes in a semiquaver earlier) can come in handy, making it easy to distinguish the two tunes you're mixing.