Shattered Kingdoms

I remember using change sex on Maraigh when he was fighting someone in the crossroads and he didn't notice he was a girl until later when meeting a seeker of his faith. I couldn't stop laughing.

There are a few good uses for change sex. Could go good with polymorph if you're trying to hide your identity. This is an RP mud afterall, i've successfully used this spell in the past for that exact reason.

No good reasons that it is not flagged as self-only, though.

You do at least get a will save, and you can always just kill whoever's holding it so they'll release it.

Of course there is! Didn't you read my post? It's hilarious!

If anything, there is no reason why you can't use "c 'change sex' <male/female/neuter>" to pick a target gender.

Getting back to your topic... I want to say welcome to SK, it's always good to see new people. Hellions are a fun pick but know that your path will not be an easy one starting out. Darkies are not that kind or forgiving of mistakes. Here are my thoughts on your question.

A. There is no best choice, I would say algorab is more active right now. I am Kholek the leader of the algorab hellion sect and I've been putting some solid time in lately and enjoy mentoring new people. The other two faiths are good but I have not seen much in the way of leadership from them activity wise.
B. Unless there are no active knights of any faith I would say yes, you do. To me it's very important and if I found the leader of my church hadn't gone through that process he would be a dead man in my attempts to overthrow his rule. But that's just me and everyone has their own opinion on it.
C. When you enter a faith the HF that is a hellion will or should set you up with a mentor. If there are none you will need to be active and seek out other knights in other faiths. I have a squire of Sargas currently. Your title isn't as important as keeping an eye out for a hellion to log on and approach him.
D. As mentioned there is no limits or caps as to when one can become a squire or when one can become a knight. One can be a squire for a very long time if they prove foolish, inactive, rebellious. It's all about the RP on that.
E. No.

Feel free to contact me in the game, good luck.

You should probably just talk to your OOC friend more. If he can't answer these questions about a Hellion, you should probably not take his advice to be one. Just ask Maraigh.

He transcended gender, I don't know what to tell you...