So even if you were not hosting an onion site but merely browsing or connecting to onion sites then how would you ensure that your connecting with HTTPS? Are you talking about using the firefox add-on "HTTPS everywhere" or am I way off? I guess this add-on forces your connections through HTTPS?
I remember looking into this extension and from what I recall it adds HTTPS on mainstream sites with support for HTTPS such as facebook etc. So if you go there without https you are redirected to https.
You will need to use HTTPS when connecting to sites outside the Tor network if you don't want the exit node to ear swap what you communicate, but if you connect to hidden services then according to grue that's not necessary since the hidden service itself is the exit node.
From what I can see Freedom Hosting is a good place to host your onion site. I heard that the group 'anonymous' tried before to hack them and take them offline as they thought there was child porn being hosted too. They failed...
I agree, freedom hosting is hosting so much illegal stuff it's ridiculous. The Tor network would take a massive hit if they closed, I believe they host everything from silk road to child porn sites. And they are still going strong.
It would be great with a guide on how to setup a service like that, they must have done something right.