Don't think of the word count as metric.  Think about your users (I know that's becoming cliche now).  Does a 200 word post help them with something or at least useful.  I don't know of many that are.  Sometimes that sort of short winded post may be better off on Google+, FB or Twitter.

Neil Patel wrote a really good article a year ago this time about the more words the merrier.  Over 2,000 words in a post seemed to rank it.  http://www.quicksprout.com/2012/12/20/the-science-behind-long-copy-how-more-content-increases-rankings-and-conversions/

Also John Doherty wrote on the MozBlog about the types of posts that get links and he did some analysis to back it up.

http://moz.com/blog/what-kind-of-content-gets-links-in-2012?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+seomoz+%28SEOmoz+Daily+Blog%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

There is a version of moz that allows for white label Reports but not the ability to allow someone to log in and rummage through the data.  You can create special reports for them and have them sent automatically.

To upgrade your account to the white label ability, you can go to your subscription tab and upgrade there.  If you just want to create reports that are customized, you can go to your campaign and select create report.

Just understand that the $99 version allows you to create reports but not white label them.  Only the $199 and up packages allow you to fully white label.

Your first thought is correct.  You should use them to show hierarchy of content.

Directly from Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide (page 20)

http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en/us/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf

"Heading tags (not to be confused with the HTML tag or HTTP
headers) are used to present structure on the page to users. There are
six sizes of heading tags, beginning with

, the most important, and

ending with

, the least important (1).

Since heading tags typically make text contained in them larger than
normal text on the page, this is a visual cue to users that this text
is important and could help them understand something about
the type of content underneath the heading text. Multiple heading
sizes used in order create a hierarchical structure for your content,
making it easier for users to navigate through your document."

There isn't a limit to any of the header tags as far as I know.  You are correct that most of us suggest that you only use one H1 tag.  I generally don't put a limit on a page of the number of H2, etc tags I use.  Remember, you are building your pages for your users and not for Google.  Use your header tags to help people navigate information on your page.

Two things to think about with SSL.

1. Google looks at is a trust signal.  It shows you are actively trying to protect the users that come to the site.  Google had an article on this in 2014.  https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2014/08/https-as-ranking-signal.html

2. How users perceive the site.  I personally take less advice from sites with no SSL.  Mostly because, to me, it's a sign they aren't up to date.  But also, it can deter certain people from making purchases and subscribing to your list without it.

There is "technically" a slowing down of the site with SSL, but with proper installation and configuration it's not much. There is encrypting/decrypting overhead when the site uses SSL.  The word "slower" doesn't mean snails pace.  It is usually a few milliseconds difference if configured correctly.

Simply adding an SSL cert isn't enough. It is technically a site change and you'll need to do some things to inform Google that the site has change.  I HIGHLY RECOMMEND doing the upgrade to HTTPS during a time the site doesn't have much traffic.  It can take a few weeks to implement correctly in the SERPs. You can read more about it here. https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6033049?hl=en

Short Answer:  Set a canonical url on the pages to the root domain version and noindex the subdomain pages.

What this does is avoid the duplicate content problem.  Generally, those subdomain pages won't rank anyway because the same information is on the "main" site.  You can still build links to those subdomain pages and do a strong internal link structure to help the "main" site rankings.

The only negative to this is that the pages in your subdomain won't rank.  That's not necessarily a bad thing but just know they won't.  But, if the pages are truly duplicate content, they won't rank anyway.

These are really good.  I'm going to dive into them tonight.

On top of moving the subdomains (there are 3) we've also built a new site on a new platform and moving all those pages from there too.   They had page IDs vs Search Engine Friendly urls.  They've been online since 2002 so there has been a TON of work that has gone into it and I just want to make sure I can make the move as smooth as possible.

Thanks again for your help and I'll keep you posted.

I think you are already seeing that Google is treating these two as the same.  I've had this issue with a legal blog and a lawyers main website.  We took the blog from it's own domain and put it under the main lawyer website.  We did see a dip in traffic for about two months but it quickly recovered and we ended up with more traffic as the overall site seemed to be more authoritative under one roof.

During this merge, I would also check for "thin content" and/or content that is no longer relevant and/or getting traffic.  We tend to use the opportunity as a sort of spring cleaning of the site.  But, since your sites are pretty identical, a good thorough examination of all the content on both would be beneficial.  Make sure you map the "old" site and keep a sitemap just in case something goes wrong.  We used a Google Sheet/ Excel to map domains so in the event something went wrong with the the 301's, we had the opportunity to correct everything.

I know there are risks with moving the domain, but I think the positives outweigh them by a long shot.