4. In the miners round table on the second day, one of the devs mentioned that he didn't want to be seen as the decision maker of Bitcoin. On the other hand, Chinese miners repeatedly mentioned that they want several concrete proposals from devs which they could choose. I see no contradiction between these 2 viewpoints.
6. I believe we should avoid a radical "Economic Change Event" at least in the next halving cycle, as Bitcoin was designed to bootstrap the adoption by high mining reward in the beginning. For this reason, I support an early and conservative increase, such as BIP102 or 2-4-8. 2MB is accepted by most people and it's better than nothing for BIP101 proponents. By "early" I mean to be effective by May, at least 2 months before the halving.
(c) My most optimistic guess is SW will be ready in 6 months, which will be very close to halving and potential tx volume burst. And it may not be done in 2016, as it does not only involve consensus code, but also change in the p2p protocol and wallet design