You'll need to use a float value parameter controlled from code on the C# side in order to have a specific start time.
http://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Material.SetFloat.html

There's no way to do that at the moment

They should. Just change the emission LM mode in the material, it's a dropdown box at the top

It's possible but very cumbersome to make, at least if you have a large matrix.

But yes, just shift the UVs and sample again, and do whatever you like with the result!

You're likely just missing normals and/or tangents on the mesh

Not entirely sure why this happens, but it could be due to regression caused by Unity's changes in the PBR pipeline as of late. I'll have to look into it in the next update

No, there's no trial version planned I'm afraid

It's rather involved, and I don't remember the whole process myself! This shouldn't be an issue in Unity 5 though, is it?

It's more about GUI guiding people to expect feature X to be present for feature Y, since feature X was present for feature Z, but not Y.

Likely just a platform difference. There are lots of those