1. Non-pooled mining; Say I wanted to not have a cut of a coin, but a whole ~25 of them, (time isnt a factor in this hypothetical) how do I start up and mine a block? Is it possible? Why/why not?
This is called 'solo mining', and it's possible to do at any time, with any amount of hashing power. Can't say I've had to set that up in years, so you may want to search the forums a bit if that's what you're interested in.
As for mining a block while going solo, think of it like an elaborate lottery that takes place an average of every 10 minutes. If you have a device that generates 1,000,000,000,000 hashes per second (1 TH/s in this case), you'll be competing to solve a block with the rest of the network, which is operating at somewhere in the ballpark of 300,000,000,000,000,000 (300,000 TH/s).
Solo mining with 1 TH/s means the probability of finding a block before the rest of the network is about 0.000333% (1 TH/s / 300,000 TH/s). In other words, not that great...that's why many people join pools...but that's not to say it isn't possible (just very unlikely).
2. What is the most cost effective asic on the market today? Is it an asic? Are there cpus/gpus that are profitable today?
Speaking strictly about Bitcoin, no, there are no CPU/GPU miners that are profitable today. That era of mining quickly died out after the rise of ASIC-based mining.
As for the most cost effective miners, BitMain Tech and Spondoolies-Tech are at the top of the list (decent quality hardware, price, and power efficiency). There may be others, but I'll leave that up to other members to mention them.
3. In a pool, what am I looking for to get the most payout? (hash speed/pool people/popularity/etc)
With pools, size (hashing speed) and fees are typically the things I look for. The larger the pool (in regards to their share of the total hashing power), the more stable / consistent the payouts can be. Smaller pools have much more variance (such as not finding a block for days, limiting how often you're paid), but that's necessarily a bad thing. A small pool on a recent lucky streak (finding blocks more often than their theoretical average) can be more lucrative for the miners since there's so few of them to share the BTC25 reward.
4. Bitcoin is predicted to hit roughly 9m by 2017 (according to entry level economics), given this economics principal, and the finite amount of coins, why is it at ~$200 today and not higher?
Not quite sure what you mean by "9m by 2017", but the price isn't higher because of...so many possible/plausible/known/unknown factors.
In other words, I have no idea. Part of it could be because of BitStamp, or the US Marshals upcoming massive auction, or fear resulting in (or from) investor capitulation, or lack of volume, or uncertainty of the future, or a combination of everything. Only one way to reverse it though; start buying up some cheap coins.
5. Is there any possible chance a crypto-currency will be worth more than bitcoin? Is there one?
That's a hard question to answer, mainly because it's usually based on opinion. Personally speaking (just to emphasize that this is my opinion), Bitcoin was the first and the most revolutionary of the cryptocurrencies because it brought about the blockchain. Will there be anything better than Bitcoin? Maybe. Has it come along yet? No.
6. Where on the internet can I safely exchange bitcoins into USD? (to paypal, typically)
Well, for starters, saying "safely exchange bitcoins into USD" and "Paypal" in the same sentence is essentially an oxymoron, given the ability to reverse payments on the platform.
I use Coinbase for all of my BTC/USD and USD/BTC transactions, and I haven't had a single problem (depositing and withdrawing directly to/from my bank account). My next 'go to' was BitStamp, though I'm obviously hesitant to recommend them after their recent hack.
