1) Mercedes AMG has had trouble all season long with their tires degrading faster than everyone else. They have the performance in the car to compete with Red Bull Infinity to be the fastest cars on the track, perhaps even beat them, which is reflected in their stellar qualifying performance. Their one lap performance is amazing, and it drops off much faster than the other teams which leads to lower race day performance.
2) The knockout qualifying system is why. In Q1, the six slowest cars (17-22) have their positions set and do not continue. The rest of the cars advance to Q2. In Q2, the next six slowest (11-16) have their positions set and are also done. The ten fastest cars advance to Q3. Finally, in Q3 the top 10 positions are determined. After each qualifying session, the times are reset, so all that matters in Q1 and Q2 is to try to make it out of the knockout zones. Mark Webber had times in Q1 and Q2 good enough to advance, but the team did not think they had speed to make it very high up in the top 10, so they did not go out in Q3 to save their tires, as teams only get 3 sets of Prime tires and 3 sets of Option tires for all of the Qualifying sessions and for the Race. Additionally, when you participate in Q3, you must start the race on the tires you set your best qualifying time with.
3) There are a lot of technical regulations about chassis geometry and engine size, etc. If you really want to know, you can read up on them here: http://argent.fia.com/web/fia-public.nsf/7EE7D5392A94A532C1257A850051A2C9/$FILE/2013%20TECHNICAL%20REGULATIONS.pdf
Basically, the engine size and type is fixed, but there are multiple engine suppliers (Mercedes, Ferrari, Renault, Cosworth, etc.). There is a minimum body clearance, a minimum weight, maximum dimensions, etc. that mean that all the cars will look roughly similar, but there are very significant differences with each car.
4) The rule with defensive maneuvers is that you can make one defensive move and then you must stop. This means that the leading car can block once and then cannot deviate from their racing line after that. If both cars are on the optimal racing line, then if the trailing car tries to pass off-line, the leading car can block, but if the trailing car moves back to the optimum line, the leading car cannot move back as well. Basically on the straights you can't zig-zag around to keep a car behind you. If they're going faster than you, you can cut them off in a corner, but at most you can force them off-line briefly on the straights.
5) Each track has at least one (some have two) DRS Detection Zone where the interval to the car directly ahead (regardless of actual position in the race) is measured. If the gap between the two cars is less than one second, the trailing car can activate their DRS system in the DRS Activation Zone that corresponds to the Detection Zone. The car's DRS system should not activate at all outside of the Activation Zone, and if they did it would probably get penalized in some way.
6) At each race, the tire supplier brings two compounds of tires for each driver to use: a Prime tire (the harder compund) and a Option tire (the softer compound). The option tires are generally capable of better grip, and therefore faster lap times (usually 1.5 seconds per lap or so) but also wear out and lose performance much faster than the Prime tires. By the F1 regulations, each driver must use at least one set of the Prime tire and the Option tire during the race. The teams strategize when to use which tires to optimize the relative performance on track.
7) All the drivers have helmet mics of some kind so they can communicate with their pit crew, but I have no clue what kind they might be.
8) Leaving the track surface is generally not penalized as long as the driver does not gain any advantage from it. For example, if you leave the track to avoid hitting another car that has spun out, that typically is OK. If your opponent has legitimately blocked you through a corner, it is not OK to pass off the track. If you immediately give up your position gain by going off track they do not penalize you. At the same time, if you are forced off track by another driver, that driver may be penalized depending on relative position (i.e.: if you are along side, they are supposed to give you enough room).
9) "Fail 22" is a code phrase that we can only speculate about. I believe that both Vettel and Webber had KERS issues, which means their cars could have been missing the added 10% power boost that the KERS systems give.
10) Points are give to positions 1-10 as such: 1st : 25 points, 2nd : 18 points, 3rd : 15 points, 4th : 12 points, 5th : 10 points, 6th : 8 points, 7th : 6 points, 8th : 4 points, 9th : 2 points, 10th : 1 point. You might have been seeing their relative standings in the Driver's Championship and not their points from the race or something like that.
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