In response to your #4, check out the stopBindings option. It provides a pretty simple pattern where you can wrap your knockout bound components in a stopBindings, then you don't have to worry about other binds on the page interfering with them.

See here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9254632/how-to-stop-knock...

Also note that you can configure it as a virtual element, so you can use the <!--ko stopBindings: true--> syntax.