1. Gear has no rank requirement anymore (sadly) wolves den is dead you better off trying lv 60 pvp and its actual pretty fast these days since the cost got reduced
2. you only get your rank resetted if u switch gc but since they removed rank requirement no you dont have to maintain
3. you should queue either field of glory (8vs8vs8 /24vs24vs24) or feast ranked 4vs4 any other mode is dead (recommend to do frontlines first cause a ranked mode as a completely first timer isnt a good)
4. all are fine except drk and maybe smn
5. you have to be in a gc and always will around lv20 you have to decide for one (you can change later every 2 weeks though) it only decide in frontlines in which team you are
6. idk Im not on your server