Orange Box Redundancy Issues

[Grey Acumen]

Okay, I've had demos for Half Life 2 and Portal on my computer for close to a year now, and I recently beat the original Half Life(bought off of Steam for $1). I actually had a lot of fun, despite the need for keyboard controls, and found the story to be incredibly engaging, despite the fact that I could count the number of different character models for allies on one hand.

Ultimately, it was the original half life, combined with the $30 price tag(Last I checked, I thought it had been $50, how long ago did it drop? Or was that just the console pricing?) that convinced me to actually purchase The Orange Box for PC. I haven't yet, but it's no longer a "I probably will purchase it eventually" and more of a "I'm going to purchase it after christmas if I don't get it as a gift"

I've got a few general questions that I'd like to address before I actually go grab the thing:

1.) I got Half Life 2: episode 1 as a gift, but Orange Box is supposed to include all of Half Life 2, so will that basically just overlap, thus essentally wasting the gift I got, or will I be able to gift that episode to someone else?

2.) I know the disc will come with a registration code or something, but what if I'm installing it on a PC without net connection? Will I still need to register online to play at all, or will it let me verify my instal by leaving the disc in or something?

3.) I heard that the extra levels for portal that are on XBLA as "still alive" are actually already included as a free download for the PC version, can anyone verify this?

4.) How bad am I going to get murdered on Team Fortress 2? I know you can turn down the visuals for lower specced PCs, but I'm sure everyone else is doing that with much more powerful PCs than mine. and can anyone recommend the best class for newbies to start out with?

5.) How long is Half Life 2 compared to the original Half Life? It took me about 2 or 3 days to get completely through half Life, but because of how the different sections flowed together, it felt like I was just constantly working my way through one huge level. I'm kinda curious how much time I'm looking at for Half Life 2, and also episode 1 and 2, and if I should expect that same type of flow, or if it's broken up a little more.

6.) Is Half Life: Source worth getting? from what I've been able to understand, it's essentially the exact same as the  original Half Life, but done using the Half Life 2 game engine? i've heard there were other episodes for the original half life that i'm guessing weren't included in my $1 deal, but does Half Life: Source include these?

7.) What type of attitude should I expect from the Team Fortress 2 community? I was really kinda hoping to avoid the Halo retard/troll type crowd. I know I'm going to run into some of that no matter where I go, but I was hoping to see as little of that as possible.

 

I could probably find most of this out on my own, but I was hoping some random person knowledgable in Valve might just be able to save me the effort.