I use it that way all the time when signing up on sites. Once they sell the email address to spammers I delete the forward and all the spam goes with it.
If you are using a POP client that's the only way it will work.
However that does not stop someone from spoofing your account and sending email as you although they can't send it through your domain.
Example: you@att-domain.com but you set the return to be someone@you-domain.ext any bounced emailed that way will come back to your domain and not the stt-domain.com
Yes, it is quite normal. ISP's use serveral DNS servers. Sometimes they do not all update at the same time. Depending on which DNS server you are hitting will depend on whether or not your site will be available until all the DNS servers update.
My guess would be he may have more bandwidth and disk space but if he tries to use it it won't be there. Many hosts over sell their servers and resources hoping that not everyone will use them all.
I used to be with a host like that. They were down more than they were up. I've been here at TCH since 2003 and have never looked back. I like TCH so much I became a moderator after someone recommended me. Same as our other forum moderators.
That was going to be my first recommendation but I know how people like a particular browser and asking them to use something different doesn't always turn out well.
Glad you got it to work but it sounds like your GoLive is not set to publish subdirectories.
If the image is in the images folder the image tag needs to look like this:
><img src="/images/name-of-image">