re: General questions about rooting.

Think of rooting your phone as giving yourself the highest level of access rights to your phone. What you do with those access rights is up to you. you can do something as simple as installing an ad blocker app or a data backup app to something as dramatic as changing from the Samsung/Verizon version of Android to a custom version. I suggest doing a search for apps that require root and see if any of them interest you. Personally I will never get a new phone until I know it can be rooted.