Hm, not sure if they can be used without completion of the minigame but they can be traded. I can get you a Maple Blackjack for like 2k or something. :
If you have the extra money to spend on it, I would buy it. But if you're going to save up 50M just to buy one, I would suggest spending the money elsewhere like on skills or other equipment (barrows for example).
I agree with alcoolj, your intentions were good but I think you're were a bit too paranoid. I personally wouldn't have looked him up, nor have I done it in the past but that could be because many of my friends are skillers so I'm used to seeing lower levels with good equips. So it could just be the environment we've played in differed.
1) Hypercam and other screen-capture programs record what is on your screen and saves it into a video file (AVI). 2) Uh, if you mean what's a good recording program, HyperCam 2 is pretty good. I use Camtasia. 3) Google it and look for free trials. 4) Dunno, I've only edited them into animated gifs.
It doesn't really matter. The cost to repair will be directly related to how damaged it is, so whenever you want to repair it is ok. You can also look at this section, it may explain it better than me: http://tip.it/runescape/?page=barrows_guide.htm#rewards
You can fix it at any point (cost dependent on how broken it is) If you don't get it fixed it eventually becomes 0 and you can't wear it until you fix it.
Also there's the annoying fact that once you fail, you fall down to the 1st floor and have to walk back to the second floor, past all the monsters. I did it at 57 agility, but it took a while. Luck is a big factor as usual :(. I failed like 5+ times on the last handhold.