[burningyen]

I agree this is a confusing part of the book. I don't have it in front of me, but this is what I remember: He talks about the need to gamble it up more in the yellow and orange zones. This presumably means that you should be widening your range of starting hands. And yet he also says small pairs and suited connectors become less playable without explaining what starting hands become more playable. I believe the inference is that he expects to play more marginal hands containing an A, K or Q.

As for your other questions, I think the answers will depend mostly on how your table has been playing.