No problem. I had a lot of questions when I switched to margin too, and somebody helped me along the way. :)
I started a "complete investment account" but if you make 30 trades per quarter, eTrade will automatically bump you up to the investment account plus Pro Elite. Each buy and each sell is considered a trade, so if you buy ABCD and sell ABCD on the same day, that is 2 trades.
I don't know if you can apply straight for the investment + pro elite account...you may be able to.
Their platform is called eTrade Pro, and it comes free when you have that complete investment account plus Pro elite. It's not bad ... a lot of people REALLY like it. It suits my needs just fine - I just cancelled my ihub level2, actually, to focus more on the platform. So I have no complaints, but I don't do a lot of crazy stuff with it. I only use about 5% or less of the features. :)
To answer a couple of your questions at once: I've never used another brokerage, so I haven't used scott. I also have never had any reason to visit an office nor felt any need to, but that's just me. If it's important to you, then definitely weigh that. But for me it wasn't a factor.
I only use limit orders, usually. Once in a blue moon I'll use a stop loss, but haven't in quite a while. Limit orders suit me just fine
News 
Market Data 
Discover 
AI
