Well done for completing your apprenticeship with Qantas and welcome back to Pprune after 3 years and to the Wannabee forum in particular.
Firstly could I ask you to look at the various threads where I think you will find a lot of the answers to your questions? Try the search function and some of the sticky threads as a starter.
It is a very subjective topic and you will get a broad spectrum of responses especially from the sciolists (see the bottom of the page) who will use any thread to 'bang their drum'.
To prevent the last bit happening I will
temporarily close the thread and ask you to PM me when you want it opened again!
HWB