Hey, fellow guitarist!

I've got a couple of questions, I'm hoping you can answer for me (and since most of them are sort of songwriting-related, I figured this would be the right forum).

Note: My goal is to write a Rock Ballad of sorts, so the questions are mostly about that. Moving on to the questions, here we go:

1: What's a great way to start a Rock Ballad? Or any Rock-song for that matter? My first idea is to begin with a few whole-note Power Chords or Open Chords, with a Lead Guitar line on top, but I'm not sure how well this would work (I'm also not sure how suited Power Chords are for Rock Ballads, but that's another question...)

2: What would you recommend for Rhythm Guitar and Lead Guitar Tone respectively? I know that Slash uses a clean tone for a large part of both "November Rain" and "Don't Cry", until just before the solos where his tone goes distorted. On the other hand, James Hetfield uses a more or less clean tone in "Nothing Else Matters". Judging from this, it would seem that an ideal tone for Rock Ballads would be a clean tone, although Distortion makes the solos sound more expressive in my opinion (Also, I used Slash and Hetfield as examples since they're two of my guitar-idols, and the songs were the first ones I could think of as examples...)

3: What "group" of chords is most suited? Open Chords? Inversions? Power Chords? Barre Chords? I think one of the instructors on this site has done a tutorial on Rock Ballads, where he uses Barre Chords for the Rhythm Guitar, while the Lead Guitar just plays single-note lines, but I may be wrong.

4: Once I have the chords I want to use? Do I find out what scale has the root-notes of all the chords? Will this be the scale I should try soloing over? For example, if the root notes of the chords in a progression are all found somewhere in the E Minor Pentatonic Scale, would that be the scale I should improvise over? Or would there be an individual scale for each chord? (I'm not sure if Mr. Schlegel covers this in his "Improvisation" tutorials. I've only watched the beginner-lessons on improvisation, so I may have to watch the more advanced tutorials on the topic...)

5: Is there still a place for longer songs (like, 5-10 minutes long) these days or is the maximum length for any "good song" 3-3:30 minutes? I honestly prefer longer songs, since they have more time for self-expression and are often not nearly as rushed, but if there's no place for that kind of songs, there's no reason to make any that long songs.

6: Is it feasible to attempt to write any songs without having a band? I know there are backing tracks in the Jam Station and around the internet, but the vast majority of those seem to be more up-beat than what I'd prefer for this experiment...)

I hope you'll take your time to read and answer the questions. It will be most appreciated (this would be my first attempt at song-writing after all, so I'd prefer to get some advice from more experienced guitarists than myself).