New player some questions!

[Vazoth]

1. While gathering and crafting surely is the way to make some serious gil, you should first ask yourself, if you will need a lot of gil. I mainly did the mainstory quests and partly leveled some additional classes to unlock skills, which I use for my main class. If it's gear for leveling you're looking for, don't look at the market board (equivalent to auction houses). There's a NPC vendor in every levelregion, who is most sufficient, not to mention the quest rewards you earn anyway.
Having just reached the Expansion, I just crossed the 1 million gil mark and honestly I don't know what I should spent it on. To sum this up: Enjoy the game and you'll get enough gil by questing. If you should need more, then might be the time to look into gathering and crafting.

2. Yes, but keep in mind that there are two types of subscriptions. There is the standard subscription and a cheaper entry level subscription. The entry level restricts you to one playable character per server.