1 - Thief and Torch Light.
As you may, or may not, know, the classes, like everything else in CRPGs, is based upon D&D (enough commas for you?). In D&D, Rogues have some limited magic use later on in life, so that is reflected here in giving them minor elemental access. Reflective? Yes. Useful? Well...

As BTB said in his thread, he felt that in any skill you have you should at least be able to become Expert. Will Expert Elemental be all that more useful than Basic mastery? Only you can decide. However, bear in mind that one of the great strengths of the MM games is their flexibility in regards to SIRs (Self-Imposed Restrictions). While it's highly doubtful that your casters will ever be SO drained that they must call on the Thief for a light, such magic becomes invaluable when playing a solo game. And besides, back-alley hoods are always lighting up fags; it's part of the romance of their character.

2 - Statistic breakdown.
Stats provide benefits up through 500. However, as the stat gets higher, the amount needed for the next break point increases.

http://members.aol.com/tenernie7/Building/Breakpoints.html

Thus, an item that gives you say, +5 to might, will be useful in the early stage when your stat is very low, but is essentially useless later on. By the time you find items that give the maximum of +25 to a stat, they will be useless. Even artifacts with +100 will add only a tiny boost, unless you are near the 400/500 mark.

3 - Skill maxing
In general, Miscellaneous skills such as Disarm are done if you GM in them, as they say they give 100% chance of success. If you can't GM, and for the others, increasing skill rank will help, but I recommend raising combat/magic skills as a priority.

You have read the descriptions for the skills, yes? 25 skill in Sword, assuming GM, will give you +25 to hit, -25 recovery time, allow dual wielding, and +25 AC. At this high rank, you might want to consider raising your armor/shield skills up, or perhaps Armsmaster, as it will be expensive to continue to improve Sword further.

4 - Nelly nearly nicking NPCs
You might find Bones's guide to combat interesting:

http://www.angelfire.com/nt/bones/

5 - Drinking and Fighting, the untold story
While most games tend to offer defenses against all attacks in the game, not so with M&M. While you are able to cure any condition, you cannot resist all of them. Drunk, Insanity, aging and others do not have an item in the game that makes you immune to being affected. HOWEVER, MM7 does have one improvement here over MM6: the Body spell Protection from Magic. At Master rank you gain limited immunity to various debilitating effects, and GM blocks even death attacks. It does not block all attacks, so you can never feel 100% safe, but it will help a lot. As for a general cureall, especially in the middle of battle, use the Restoration potion.

6 - Indiana Jones: shooting v. swordplay
There is a scene wherein Indy, beaten and battered, enters a marketplace, only to be stopped by a master swordsman. The man spins and twirls his sword extravagently and is clearly a powerful opponent. Indy responds by drawing his gun and shooting him. Learn from this.

If you want to have monsters dropping your hp every seconde then by all means, get up close and personal. If you want to live however, learn to shoot. Learn to shoot and run. Learn to shoot and run, backwards, while moving to the side to dodge their missiles. At the end of the day, who cares if you're called a coward. You're still alive and are as rich as a king.

Lastly, do bear in mind that in addition to magic and elemental resistances, some monsters have Physical resistance. This means they have damage reduction versus weapon attacks. If you keep slicing with your sword and are causing 3 pts of damage, then start hitting it with magic. If fire bolt doesn't work, try poison spray, harm, mind blast, etc. Find a magic type that seems to work and pound away!