Does Skilled Bombardier allow Finch to place a bomb using the 1 speed template touching his base? If not is it because Finch's ability says "place" and skilled bombardier says "drop or launch"?

The "place a bomb" is a replacement effect, so the bomb is never dropped, but instead placed. Skilled Bombardier says "if you would drop or launch a device...", which would trigger the effect if the bomb was dropped.

No, Finch cannot use Skilled Bombardier to extend from touching to Speed-1 away.

Placing touching is not dropping a bomb using a 0-speed template--it uses no template at all. As such, there is no template for Skilled Bombardier to lengthen or shorten. This is similar to how Skilled Bombardier can't reduce a normal 1-speed drop to something less than 1-speed.

It's probably also possible to get to the same result by viewing Place and Drop or Launch as different. I haven't thought about the implications of it however.