A1: Yes, but it depends
I used to be someone who used to watch movies and tv shows on soap2day/fmovies/etc but once I tried watching a proper full release (Bluray encode, or even just a WEB release) I could never go back. If you have a good TV, and you want to maximise your watching experience, private trackers are easily the way to go. But it entirely depends on your needs.
Even with a slower upload speed, it's not impossible to keep a good ratio. As long as you have drive space to seed, you will get bonus points that you can use to keep your ratio positive. About being kicked, most sites are "one lifetime, one account" so you can't just restart from RED if you get in trouble. Ideally, don't get in trouble, stay off the forums except for recruitments, just keep a good ratio and don't fuck up.
A2: Depends on the content
For Movies and TV you generally don't need to care where you get it from. Even if the file is infected somehow, a competent video player will not allow whatever malicious code to be executed so you're good there
What you do need to worry about is for Games and Software. You are essentially running random .exe files that would even show up as a malicious file on VirusTotal if it's a cracked program that bypasses some subscription or premium purchase.
You said you don't download much games and when you do it's Fitgirl so you're good there. Fitgirl is a trusted releaser and as long as you use fitgirl-repacks.site you won't have an issue (double check the hashes anyway, fitgirl releases include a program that does it for you). It is true 1337x had that problem recently with the EMPRESS release for Baldur's Gate 3 that included a Bitcoin miner (apparently EMPRESS was not responsible for it, and someone else had reposted it including the malware).
If you do download games, the best tracker is GazelleGamesNetwork (GGn) and you should consider finding a way in if you want to play more games at some point. Releases there are thoroughly checked and the staff are very careful. People find out very quickly if something is questionable and will not hesitate to call it out so it can be considered safe.
As for software, it's tough because there is no big trusted private tracker for cracked programs for Windows. Rutracker is what I usually recommend, it's semi-private and is atleast better than 1337x or TPB (try not to use those anymore). RuTracker also has m0nkrus releases, just translate the comments and see if anything seems off about it.
I guess it's just a personal thing. I personally cannot stand the "Please Activate Windows" watermark and MAS is such an easy tool that it just makes sense to do it. It's not like this announcement kills MAS, you can still use the other activation methods