Practically a trusted node should be any node where you can spend your currency for anything equally valued. This would be any trustworthy store or business that guarantees they accept the relevant currency through Ripple. Essentially, what you are then doing by trusting them, is investing in them with your trust granting them a possible debt (in case they indirectly spend the trust trough other paths) for future services. Anyone who is giving you money through Ripple should NEVER be trusted, with the exception of established gateways for physical currencies. When working with local currencies, you should ONLY trust those who can return you services for said currency, and preferably only for the amount that you expect to spend there in a reasonable future timespan.

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It's to filter out impatient and annoying people, clearly.

Short term issues don't seem anything to really worry about.

Second that.

So everyone's gonna set up their own currency now and try to hype it?

I prefer prepayments over recurring charges. It's safer.

I just sell small amounts when it passes certain values upwards, and buy small amounts when it lowers into certain values. Holding onto roughly an equal value in BTC and EUR.