Yep.  If you want new, this is a great choice.  Best glass tube left, a remarkably robust design - I have messed up mine any number of time with no damage.

$1400 or less at any radio dealer.  Get the pre installed QSK module if you do CW.

And get a dummy load.  The oil filled one will take all the abuse you can hurl at it.

You will be a LOT happier with a 100 watt radio - you can always turn it down to 5 watts if you want to, but you cannot turn up a 5 watt radio to 100.

While you are at HRO in Oakland buying whatever parts you still need, pick up the ARRL Antenna Book or one of the other books on building your own antennas.  At the very worst you learn something, at best you find a perfect antenna for you QTH.

Well, speaking generally, if you need it, turn it on.

It's sure not an instant warm up, keeping that in mind, I guess you balance how often you switch it on - If you end up turning it on every time you operate anyway, why not reduce the stress on yourself and just turn it on at the start of your operating session and be ready when you need it.

From what I understand, tube life is considered as filament on time, so yes, technically you are putting hours on your tube any time you have the amp on, driving it or not. 

BTW, given what some of those tubes cost, I can appreciate your concern. 

for ground radials, 14 ga stranded at the lowest price is what you want, you need plenty and no reason to overpay.  I built a 160 meter loop out of 12 ga Lowe's/Home Despot stranded THNN wire, three years ago now.  It's still going strong, you are laying this on ground, it will last forever.

I log all HF contacts, because keeping a log is a tradition and one I support.  If someone send me a QSL card, I want them in the log.

I don't log VHF or UHF contacts unless it is something notable.

But it is no longer required, as noted.

Amateurs share the upper part of 40 meters with broadcasters as well, so while we are permitted 7.000 to 7.300, we have bcasting on 7.2 to 7.3.  This tends a lot of the time to push the amateur activity down the band - other times there's no BC and that upper part is more active.

With the advent of digital readouts, we seem to be hearing a lot of stations closer to on frequency - and newer radios are darn good at that, but it's sure not a requirement - as as aside, amateurs are one of the few users of HF who are NOT channelized.  We get a lot more traffic into our limited bandwidth than any commercial users ever will.  Of course we tolerate a level of QRM/QRN that no commercial user would tolerate.

Think how protected the old HF long distance point to point telephone frequencies would need to be to provide an acceptable commerial phone line at several dollars per minute?

You can also look at DX Engineering's website, they have a few different remote coax switches.

A buddy of mine has two 1.125" runs of Commscope coax out to his farm and then a variety of switches to his antennas - and he's got a bunch - 5 towers, beverages, slopers...I did not count but it's a lot of wire and tubing in the air.

Kenwoods and card tables just go together.

Somehow, I doubt that Yaesu/Icom are trembling in their boots because at last Kenwood has come out with a modern radio.

One tends to think of them as totally directional, but in the CO QSO party this weekend, I worked a bunch of eastern station on 20 with my beam pointed directly west.  I'm in central colorado, so go figure.

Yes, it matters, but I still had a couple of stations that were 10 db over 9 on the back of the beam.

You need to get an antenna book and look at the section on long wire antennas and loops - pay attention to what happens to the signal patterns when the frequency goes UP - typically, the antenna starts to throw off increasingly complex patterns of lobes that may or may not suit your needs.  Resonant dipoles have smoother patterns although you might give up gain in some directions.

Some people layout their long wire antennas to take advantage of said lobing.

FWIW, I have a 160 meter loop that works FB on 80 and 40 but is not much use above that due to the freaky pattern.

If you need an antenna NOW, a ladder line fed doublet will get you on the air whilst you plan the rest of your antenna farm!

I think if I wanted to go the Yaesu route, and I have both the 2000 and the 5000, I would wait a bit and check out the FT-3000 that has been announced.

I don't think the 2000 is that bad a radio.

The nice thing about the spectrum scopes is how quickly you can evaluate band conditions.

Without better antenna, there is not much you can add to the RF chain.

How about test equipment?

VHF/UHF?

I know one guy unplugs the dryer and uses an extension cord. 

They fixed my FT-8800 in a couple of weeks, they might just be busy right now.

A good quality speaker - sometimes you don't want to use headphones, and most rigs have lousy speakers built in.  Adequate if you must but not really great. 

A cast off small bookshelf speaker can work just fine if you like the sound, you don't have to spend $200 on a matching speaker.

I made an enclosure and spent a few bucks on a 5" speaker from a local electronics shop, a speaker with a really big magnet, and it's got a nice sound for SSB use and even AM.