Since I'm submitting my talk and in honor of the 50+ games I've worked on across pretty much every modern platform you can think of:

1 like = 1 piece of advice for releasing your game that I learned (feel free to share for more answers).

I'll also take specific Q's 1. For consoles, don't underestimate the tools that platforms provide & PLEASE spend time familiarizing with how they function, it will save you so much time in the long run. The dev forums are your friend (and a lot of times I get asked on each game how to do xyz on a kit)