I have had the same experience doing the Mighty X drill a lot. I think the marks are primarily chalk/dirt lines accompanied by some minor burn marks. You can minimize the chalk marks by often vacuuming or gently cleaning on those lines - I have the Simonis X-1 cloth cleaner and it does a great...
“At least that’s the way we’ve always played” is not a very good idea when there are usually rules written for the situation. But in this case you are correct.
The measles cue ball is not heavier than other Aramith cue balls when new. But cue balls, especially the Aramith red circle do get lighter with heavy use over time.
You don’t play much 9 ball? Because if you do - quite often when hooked, the situation dictates that a jump shot is a higher percentage shot vs a kick shot.
Yup - just like in the other video, you can see the 7 ball hitting down in the back of the pocket and then hitting the top of the ball down in the front of the pocket before it bounces out. So - as was mentioned above - two balls in the pocket might prevent this from happening.
Yes - at the BCA/CSI Nationals at the Rio last February- because they were streaming all the Pro event tables - they continually played the royalty free music at the entire venue - and it absolutely sucked.