It says "not to hang or lean on during play," not hold on to. You can hold onto it. Just don't lean or apply significant pressure onto it.
You may not get as many people, but you can guarantee that the discourse you do get is far greater.
Absolutely. It's certainly difficult getting used to new layouts after the set-in-stone layout of Reddit. The federation system as you said, is pretty hard to wrap my head around, too. I was willing to take a risk and join Lemmy not knowing what's in store, but I bet many aren't willing to try something untested and new.
This definitely feels like it's a part of it, 100%. The feeling that you have to force yourself to be unique on Reddit because of how saturated it was.
Definitely a lurker. I rarely have anything I want to show off, and I like reading other people's opinions and content.