I took a linux usb disk to school, because windows literally took about 10 minutes to log in and 10 minutes to load word/IE.
And i hate IE/word anyway.
putting the /home in a different partition is definately a good one. Dont know why I dont.
I even used to do that on Windows (well, the documents and settings folder) because I had to reinstall the damn thing about once a week at best.
No. 6 is pretty much essential. You wont get very far if your not prepared to learn the Linux environment and how to use it to the fullest.