These are concepts that are discussed often in crypto forums and it may seem easy enough to some, but could be confusing to others.
In this thread, I will try to explain the difference between Centralized, decentralized and Peer to Peer platforms.

Centralized platforms;
As the name suggests, centralized exchanges or platforms, popularly abbreviated to CEX are trading platforms which operate under a central authority or server.
They are designed for convenience as the central authority has full autonomy and operates the entire system on the backend, so matching buyers to sellers is relatively easier and faster.

Funds and data are all stored and managed by the central authority or owner.

Decentralized platforms;
In decentralized platforms, there is no central server or authority. They operate by smart contracts which are designed to mediate between trades and funds are not stored on the exchange but, traders can connect their non custodian wallets and get matched with other traders.

Peer to peer Platforms;
In this system, traders trade directly with each other, similar to the way bitcoin functions as seen on the whitepaper.
P2P trades can function without a third party or with one which serves as esrow. This could be a trusted individual or website.
we can also have a,
1. Centralized P2P platform, or
2. Decentralized P2P platform.

Pros and Cons;
Centralized exchanges,
- Typically require KYC submission, especially for higher trade amounts,
- They hold funds deposited and users can be victims of hacks,
- Higher liquidity for the popular platforms.
Decentralized exchanges,
- Typically do not require KYC submission,
- Do not control funds of users,
- Lower liquidity.

Before holding, one needs to invest, so that could also be said to be the most basic skill one should have and it makes hodling very much easier.

When you invest properly, in the right asset, and with the right amount of funds based on your savings or income, it makes it much easier to actually hold despite market actions or reactions.

Reading or binge watching stuffs would allow you separate the garbage from content that are useful to newbies.

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What do you wish to understand about the crypto market? That's a long train with lots of smaller coaches.

I am mostly interested in understanding Bitcoin and how it works so this forum, Bitcoin wiki and some other resources are what I use. If you're interested in trading, you'll meet lots of shillers on social media who only talk about what's going 100× in a week, but there would still be the tiny minority that share useful content, just do a bit of research and then some more.

The seed phrase is a version of the master private key which contains all the other private keys and public keys of the individual addresses.

When you recover the seed phrase (master private key), it should recover all the individual private keys which were derived from it

1. Bitcoin addresses are not generated randomly, but are derived from the public key, which is derived from the private keys/seed phrase.
Yes, the addresses can be unlimited on HD wallets.
If you recover the seed phrase, it contains the master private keys and would restore the balance on the entire addresses generated from it.

2. I've not used a vanity address, but it should be generated from a private keys and public key derivation. Are you asking if you can create a vanity address from an already generated seed phrase?

3. If done properly, there should not be a privacy concerns when generating ANY address on an airgapped device.

All the resources I follow suggest the seed phrase or mnemonics be used to create the back up for your address rather than the private keys, so would it be commendable to use the private keys instead or is it a way to protest against the status quo?

If you insist on using your private keys and intend to store actual funds there, I would suggest also keeping a back up of the seed phrase as a secondary means of recovering your address. I cannot see the downsides of that besides providing more security for your Bitcoins.

You mean Core 23.0? That's the latest release of Bitcoin core.

I do not think the issue is related to the mempool, if it was congested, fees should simply go up as more transactions are coming through
I searched around and found this post which has a similar issue as yours with a reply to help solve it. I hope it helps.
Link = https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5192623.msg52749364#msg52749364

This is a huge risk posed by those companies that monitor user information and having a virtual keyboard would greatly help to reduce the risk posed. Do you have a list of wallets that support virtual keyboards?

There's an additional risk of keyloggers being used. This could be a hardware or software which effectively monitors keys punched in a computer through several means, and can send this information to a third party which can lead to an exploitation. The risk becomes worse when you consider that hardware keyloggers can be built in on a keyboard you purchase online and used to monitor your activities.

It's important to do proper research before purchasing and using any piece of hardware.
Also, disable any permission which allows a software provider to monitor your activities.

It's possible to change one's Twitter display name whether or not they are verified.

On other social platforms like Instagram, it is possible to check how many times a user has changed their handles in the past and can be used to guess the possibility of these accounts being scam related. Would be a good addition on Twitter as most of the scam accounts are recycled and used again.

It seems similar to a business offering a free trial at their product to allow users decide if they would want to subscribe to their service. Airdrops are also a marketing strategy to boost awareness, but should they not be given freely, why should a user have to complete some sort of task to get them?

There seems to be a security risk with applying for such airdrops as there should be some sort of identification submitted. Businesses would mostly ask for your card details before allowing you a free trial, but the projects running the airdrops might not be registered or legitimate.

It's ironic that the No. 1 nation on the list accepted Bitcoin as a legal tender, while in the second Bitcoin is not accepted by the government and actually is banned in bank transactions. This goes to show that the while government acceptance helps to make citizens more receptive of Bitcoin, the citizens can choose to adopt it regardless.

I do not know much about the other countries on the list, I have read that Switzerland is friendly to Bitcoin. And in Canada, there was an incident recently where the gov't was freezing accounts, could that play a part in the search boasts?

Can not help directly, but when buying a used equipment, it would be good to research on the average lifespan of that product, to get a rough estimate of how much good service you will get from it. This would depend a lot on how it was used by the previous owners.

Please, how do you calculate the estimated earning over time?
And for anyone to answer this question, they would need to know how much you are investing in the machinery, besides electricity cost which you already mentioned.

@mikeywith
Thank you for the explanation, it's a lot clearer now  I've not considered mining as yet, but if I do, I know what to avoid now..
I have one more question?
Do these hosting service pool the hashrate of the different mining gear contracted to them to gain an advantage in finding blocks, and then distribute the reward among all the available miners? Or is there a way for someone on the outside to verify this at all?

But yet, you pretty much answered some of the OP questions, as I tried to. See what you can do with a little effort?  
I sincerely hope my attempt to answer was helpful as I don't have much knowledge to go off.

@acroman08
Am I the "newly created account" in this accusation?
I have no ties with the user who started the thread, I was only trying to help out, that is expected from a community like this, or it is in some of the previous forums I've been on.

Goodday mikeywith,
Please, can you explain what "hosted mining" is?
I did a quick Google search on it and it seems to be a sort of system where the service provider manage your mining gear for you rather than you dealing with the logistics. Most of the relevant search results I got were from companies that offer such service, so I am not sure if I should entirely trust it, as they would definitely market their service.

In hosted mining would I still provide the electricity?
What exact logistics does the company handle?

1. Wrong.
I've been reading around the forum for a while and there are no rules against having multiple accounts, if you've done nothing wrong on either of them

2.I don't know what cheating with altcoin means, but you should respect the rules of individual campaigns, or you could be red tagged. Forum doesn't moderate bounty cheating.

3. You can choose not to connect your alt accounts, if you do not want that information to be public knowledge.
Why would you post your social media on the forum though?

4. I do not quite understand this question.

Here are the rules; https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=703657.0
Look out for rules 18 and 19.