Check out these tip and tricks about owning a 3D Printer.
http://themartinlab.tumblr.com/post/51803765008/10-things-i-wish-i-wouldve-known-before-owning-a-3d
Re. 7. You should really print off one of the spring-loaded, bearing-based upgrades (in ABS) to permanently resolve the poor plunger-based system.
4, 3 and 1 are correct, the rest is either horse manure or poor design in the printer.
Use a locking strategy on all your nuts, I learned this building racing cars. I’ve never had to tighten a nut, not even when slic3r added small infill.
Kapton tape goes on pretty damn easy underwater too.
I’ve not had to pay my Prusa’s belts any attention, they might now have gone a year untouched.
My wades/gregs based extruder self adjusts enough.
Tip #1, get something better than a makerbot.
Tip #2 use the money you save to buy beer.
Tip #3 ???
Tip #4 profit.
You shouldn’t put the grub-screw of the extruder on the flat end of the motor. Makerbot might do it that way, but at Ultimaker we found that it introduces a tiny bit of backlash, and thus it will impact your print result.