I worked in a lab for the US government building cubesats for a summer during college. I can't answer everything, here are a few answers.

1. Last time I heard pricing per pound to orbit was ~$10,000 per pound. This was for the shuttle though, so I don't know if this has changed. 2. I would guess this depends on the launch provider. Whoever's launch you're piggybacking off of will probably get to make this decision. I never heard of any real restrictions, but this wasn't my area of expertise. 3. You'd be right about that. I don't know about pricing, but your payload will need to go through vibration testing and the like 4. No clue on this one 5. You'd probably have to physically make the trip (and I'd think you'd want to. Seeing a launch is always cool). Timing will depend on whose launch you're piggy backing off of, but we needed to have everything done a few weeks before launch day.

Hope this helped a bit.