It doesnt matter in my opinion... I play on Coeurl as EST, and even though server time is WAY different (its like a 5 hour difference), the server doesnt really die down until about 4-5AM EST.

Crafting is a good way to make gil in my opinion, but it is not needed. You will require other people to put materia into your gear (like socketing gems), but they dont charge much. I didnt pick up crafting/gathering until after my third 50.

FFXIV murders computers sometimes. Radeon released a BETA driver recently that states specifically:
"Final Fantasy XIV: Improves single GPU and CrossFire performance"

Look into that driver and see if it is appropiate for the hardware that you currently have. Personally, I play with my settings on Standard (Laptop) even though I have an i7 extreme, 16GB RAM, and a GTX 470 overclocked simply because the game still looks fine to me. I only put the settings as high as I need them to not bother me.