1) yes and no. Plenty of people manage to go it alone, it just takes a bit more dedication and grinding (so much more grinding). A good team of four online hunters can harvest monsters with much greater efficiency, so there is a point at which having online access becomes a real blessing.
2) Basically. You pick your quest and go on it, you just have up to three other folks running around with you. HP for online monsters is scaled based on the number of people in your party (so you can also go to the "Port" even if you're not online, and farm "Port" quests, and it won't be like you're trying to kill a monster meant for 4x as many people), but the scaling is such that 4 people are still better than one even if the monster has that much more HP.
3) Yes. The game is only 11 months old after all (feels like longer to me, but my life's changed a LOT since i started playing MH3U...)
4) More like the dragon. There are only 3 monsters really like Lagombi: Arzuros and one whose name i can't remember that acts like an armadillo. Rathian (i presume that's who you mean?) has two subspecies, and her brother Rathalos also has two. More monsters are like them in size and power and general ferocity, with a few that are even bigger, Deviljho or Alatreon, or larger still: Dire Miralis, Jhen Mohran, and Ceadeus/Goldbeard Ceadeus (and Hallowed Jhen Mohran)
Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.
