Very valid questions..of course cold storage will be and has always been the best way to store your coins..as far as the other technical things, the team is pretty open about this...they have a telegram channel and the devs are on there all day so you could ask them about these concerns...ive got a lot of questions answered on there...Tony Peacock has a steemit page and he is a great supporter of Bitshares and is extremely knowledgeable...you should ask him these questions..let me know if i can help in any way friend