Welcome to the Q&A Forum

The estimated number of keyword searches is just that, an estimate and is not accurate at all but its all relative.

With that said, this recent blog post has some very useful information on CTR:

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/110421-092523

So yes, you will end up with a lot more traffic when you move up to the #3 and then #2 and hopefully #1 spot.

I don't believe it matters. Google interprets the dash as a space. If your website is a quality source for the answer to someones search query, it won't matter if your website uses dashes or not. For brand-ability I would opt for no dash but if you have no other choice than to buy the domain with the dashes, I believe it makes no ranking difference.

Personally, I submit each piece of content to about 10 social bookmarking sites. I would focus on the quality bookmarking sites, they can drive some serious traffic and help get your content indexed quickly.

I believe directories still have a lot of SEO value. I wouldn't just submit to every directory you find but rather target some very specific directories that are closely related to your industry. If you don't mind paying for some there are some good ones, BOTW, Business.com, Pegasus, romow, aviva, Yahoo Dir etc.. In addition to passing some link juice they also can help the search engines find your site if it is new.