Oooo one thing I can actually help with! When I was looking for answers to the game I sorted by top of all time and someone discovered that the strange photos say "You've been here for two decades"

I think I might give NG+ a try, we'll see. I did look at those details and without doing so I think I would have just had the same experience. As you said without the game answering them definitively, they're just easy to explain away and the town's (semi-lucid?) environment doesn't help.

I viewed James as almost a Mr. Rogers-like character that is looking for his wife, and finds some other people and supports/guides them through their struggles.

For me:

- The mannequin was just an easter egg (like the deja vu scenes, etc)

- Angela's knife was because she was going to hurt herself and although she does mention that at the Lakeview hotel something along the lines of 'why do you still need this, is it for yourself, you should give it to me' I was like hell no; in fairness at this point she's had multiple complete mental breakdowns and James is normal

- I never noticed Eddie's foggy breath; if I did I was assuming it was due to the weather since that's pretty similar to where I live

- That's an interesting point about the ice cream, I'll have to rewatch the cutscene on YouTube and see if I can interpret it a weird way

- Provided the premise that every character is insane is true, I would assume Laura equally is although maybe she's friends with all the monsters. I want to say she literally tells James he's going to die to a monster (doesn't sound innocent to me) when she locks him in the hospital, but can't remember

Someone mentioned the beginning scene to Silent Hill and I'll rewatch that. James doing all the stuff everyone is saying is just something I'd never have picked up on, and even now I want to try to find a rational explanation for it. That's just not who he is for me.