I've written to Google and they say it's ok provided that there's some spacing between the video and the ad. The other tips shouldn't get you banned.
I don't think so. If you have a page that has descriptions of each trick then you are not going to write all of that and then just copy and paste it here. It will only cause duplicate content and would be better to not mention it at all than to post it here. The different alternating color ones and the fewer ads are definately legit and will never get you banned for doing them. Changing the colors can easily be done without having to alter the code, just use php.