I just want to make this one quick post to highlight one tiny bit of yours, because I know many will skip everything with a "TLDR bitorrent is illegal!"
Bittorrent is not illegal! Its just a file transfer protocol. Blizzard even uses it to distribute it's own WoW patches more efficiently. As long as you are not downloading illegal movies (or any other copyright stuff) Bittorrent is 100% legal! (The fact that is legal is the reason it has not been blocked by every ISP)
If you skipped the above post thinking that, now go back and read Keiphy's post!
@Keipy: to make your post easier to read, you may want to bold out every question keeping the answers in normal type. Otherwise, great post!