Yes, but it is also set up as an OS image.

I think there is a process for persistence, but without some effort, changes are lost for OS updates.

Yes/no. The KVM solves that. When I did it I just connected my monitor’s second input to the second video card.

Don’t know anything recent, but years ago they began blocking network traffic between rows. That killed what little self hosted LAN play was still happening but kept stuff from spreading across the whole BYOC.