Ynot

Last time we did this with a fox hand puppet, we cut a hole with a flap-trap in the front of the stage. Operator under the stage thrust (essentially a section of Litedeck) pops his hand up through the trap at the right time - hit the fox with a tight spot to highlight him and away you go. A tethered string on the flap to pull it closed again after her drops down. Assuming you can get under the stage and that you can cut the hole (and of course properly fill'repair it post show) that's probably the simplest. Otherwise, create an emu-style effect where the operator carries on a box with a false back/base - puppet up through the top pf the box - false arm in the operator's finale jacket fixed around the box and again - very simple option.

I'd agree with 3, (as an Acclaim) 4 and 5, for what it's worth, but have no definitive idea on 1 & 2. :)

Hmmm... Seems Lord ALW, the previous owner of the Apollo, has some strong opinions on the matter... http://www.itv.com/news/search/?q=apollo

Hmm... Do a BR search for DMX, plus FIRE or FLAME and maybe even add CHINA for good measure.... :)

The quality will essentially be about as good as the desk feed. One way of doing just what the OP wants is to use a 2-channel master Tecpro PSU or similar. Use channel 1 for everyone, but ch 2 just for the noise desk. There's an aux feed into the PSU, which you can feed from the desk, and an input level control as well. I can't remember whether the input feed will go to BOTH channels if the noise guy is switched to both channel working (I think not, but am not sure) but as an option you can switch between the channels if needs be.