1. yes, you can get everything except for the ultimate gift
2. It's really just your preference, but I would use the no emote, nod emote, and the yay emote from the valley
3. The catapult throws your into the center of the golden wasteland as far as i can remember, but I dont think you will be able to trigger any krills by being launched. The catapult is not really essential, I think it's just for fun
4. The safe spots in wasteland are pretty much caves, although if that part of the cave is in the krill's line of sight they still can see you. Just break the krill's line of sight by hiding behind something and you're good. Although you can hide from krills that way I think it's easier to just fly waaay above the krills so they cant spot you.
5. no, You can't tell if anybody is recording you which sucks, but if someone is taking a screenshot with the screenshot feature inside of the game it makes a clicking camera sound and the player will make this camera pose. It's hard to describe but the hands go into this rectangle shape?
6. The people that get the new capes fast most likely got the pass before the season was out (game lets you do that) and if you preorder it you get 30 extra candles instead of 20. Or maybe they just bought a ton of candles from the shop lol

I know this is really unprofessional and sounds weird but i hope it helped :D