The books are incomplete or wrong in a lot of instances, (IE the senior council is only around mid teens for the refresh according to Our World),  so I would say you could extend thaumaturgy yeah provided its an effect which is active for longer then a few minutes like a Ward.

This is their known powers at the time the RPG was written.  It mentions in Ancient Mai's description onYS100:

These stats are speculation at best. If
anything, we’re underestimating her—maybe by
as much as 10 additional refresh or more.

This would bump her Refresh up to -26 or more!  I assume that this is similar for the other members of the council as well.

The play by post/chat/Wave/ etc... do work work but the pace is glacial and can be rather annoying.  I have done it a couple times and found them only OK.  The GM had to drop a player after they were blatantly cheating of dice rolls and character stats (The forum is archived don't change your skill points 1/2 way through.

I find that you have to screen players ahead of time so they fit well with your style and the other players.  A online dice roller can help a lot, but I do not know if one is available for Fate.  A good discussion on this at pen and paper games http://www.penandpapergames.com/forums/showthread.php/5256-Play-by-Post-die-rolling.  other than that not much is absolutely needed.

I still like pen and paper gaming with people around a table.  There are a number of hobby shops that carry it listed on Evil Hat's site http://www.evilhat.com/store/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=65_72.  You may be able to post a notice looking for a game.  If you are running the game, you WILL find players for it.

I do not think that it really would matter as long as the GM and player both agree that the character's concept is inline with the game.  I have an Emissary of Power (A Welsh goddess of darkness) who also has photomancy not built into her item of power.  It fit the concept even though she skirted being a FP with the Channeling.  She may be able to become a full powered Wizard in the future, but that would need a LOT of refresh and a convincing story reason.

This was very well done.  I am going to use it for all my new Fate players.  Thank you.

I'm houseruling it so that Focused Practitioners start off with a specialization bonus in their field for both conditions (power/control or complexity).  This pays them for foregoing the other fields, but not enough to disincentivize taking one of the main powers.  And I'm allowing the use of Refinements for increasing specialization.  But that's just my own take.

I am doing that as well.  A PC is playing a Emissary of Power who has photomancy with a +1 to control when using it for shadow/darkness effects.  She plans to upgrade to evocation in the future with the +1 control (darkness) converting to +1 control (spirit).

I have not found a game mechanics reason to play a FP rather than a full wizard.  However, story reasons abound for a character or GM to play one.

There is also another question: would WCV casters have to take Lawbreakers?

I think they
I do not think that they would have to take a point in Lawbreaker.  Though a WCV would be sorely tempted to mess with someones mind, and would probably give in at some point in their lives.

Personally, I'd say the laws still apply.  They are there because of the corrupting effect it has on the caster.

The WCVs still have a soul (), so they would technically still be considered mostly human.  Maybe when they lose all of their refresh you could say they have given into the beast and lost their humanity.  I will run it in my campaign like this.  With all of the musts for a WCV, a player will only be able to get Channeling to start with and a -9 Refresh.  No points starting off for Lawbreaker.  However, for a NPC it would be very possible.  I am not sure what would happen to the Lawbreaker if they gave in to the demon and lost their soul.  Will need to think on that one.

I have had battles such as this in other systems.  What I normally do is have a single "captain" on a side determine the results for that side.  All of the NPCs on a side, not in direct confrontation with the PCs, have their battle and skill checks based on that captain.  If the captain rolls well on his attack, his side does stress to one of the others.  If the captain rolls poorly her side takes stress.  This would be a CF character sheet.

You can have removing stress the equivalent of killing off an NPC.  e.g. The Wizard on Side #2 takes enough stress to cause a minor consequence so he decides to take 1 or the acolytes out of the fight.  If she had to take a Severe consequence the White Court assassin is taken out.  You can determine the number of consequences and stress available to a side based on their numbers and skill levels.

The ones fighting against the characters can be taken out of the CF side of the battle and run them individually.  Of course you could still have them in the CF character sheet.  If another team causes enough stress to the side the characters are directly fighting, have a kill steal come in from behind to take them out.  "The Knight of the Cross luges at the Ogre pinning his leg to the wall with Amoracchius, as he does this the White Court Assassin strikes him in the throat with an iron dagger finishing him off!

The only difficulty I have had was trying to get a good cut off point between the CF character sheet ad individual battles.  Normally I would make the CF sheets fight each other and have the PCs fight a smaller number of bad guys and let their actions determine the outcome and/or give bonuses to the CF combat.  I have done this with 3 sides, but never 4.  Hope you figure something out.

I think that they would if the disease is based on the Endurance of the character.  Those who are tougher may be able to shrug off a disease such as a simple cold.  Inhuman or greater toughness may give a bonus to "resisting" the disease similar to an aspect.  The character could make declaration about it and get the bonus.

But for a recovery power... i'd say you could catch a disease, but you heal from it really fast.  So you don't even feel the mild ones, whereas Ebola would lay you low for a couple of days.  Just my interpretation.

This makes perfect sense.  Just determine if the disease causes stress and how long it takes to remove the stress.  A disease that kills quickly may cause a large amount of stress that even taking consequences will take care of.  The inhuman or better recovery would reduce the time it takes to get rid of the stress and consequences.  I see it as a disease that causes 4 stress will lay low a mediocre human.  They then take a moderate physical consequence of D@mn Headache to remove 4 of the stress.  Inhuman recovery would just get rid of the consequences much faster resulting in a faster "cure".