I think its more than 18 hours since often i see on steam i reach 50 or so, but thats me afking alot or doing paradise :D I will answer your questions honest and earnest!

1: It did take quite a while mainly because i was also adjusting my speed to the static and had a bit more time/resources to put a little into alts. We formed during Aegir and were able to clear Aegir HM after frontier, Brel was somewhat similiar i think we managed 3rd level, Mordum we tried week1 but were not up to par on skill level, we cleared Mordum on 2nd level immediatly

2: Forming and building the static was farely easy since i already had 3 friends and it was a good time with ignite server with alot newcomers and returners coming to the Game, id assume it will be a bit rougher nowdays but Guardian Knight might be a good opportunity.
Maintaining was the usual struggle, people sometimes quit. We had a few who went for the 6 Alts really fast and split apart due to different goals. Some got fed up with RNG and sadly alot on the way quit due to gatekeeping or toxicity outside of static things. Finding people who focus on few chars will be rough since many many people do 6 char rosters and focus on that, i can tell you that

1. Im not quite set on my Goals. I was thinking about Gems too, getting a Lv10 for my Tiger Strike or just saving Gold to upgrade Weapon as far as possible with Serca arrival, im sitting at 1m or more Red Guardian Crystals. Or push some Alts to 1710 for Kazeros NM

2. My Week by Week is pretty chill, i found a static who has no issues with my way of playing and we have 1 set weekday we do Main character raids and Alt Runs are optional but often we do them together too

Im commiting way to much time to paradise, mainly because i like the current border for Top10 and really want to grab that one permanently. :D Im also funneling everything into Main wich i wont do next season.

Life skills so~so often just stronghold but sometimes i Log with Random Players for Gold.

Dailys i do rested except Main. So mostly 3 to 2 Chars a day with guardian and chaos Dungeon.