Ohh noooo, using that merge trick is a bad idea.. You are creating so called "lamina" faces. Go to mesh > cleanup and set the cleanup effect to "select matching polygons" then uncheck everything and check "Lamina faces" and click apply. Notice how every polygon is being selected? Another way to find out, is to zoom in on 1…
Nope, a pole is a vertex in the context that it's a point from which a number of edges radiate outward. Here's a thread with a good explanation of how to use different poles effectively (link). As far as the complexity of your base mesh goes, it all depends on what your intention is for this piece. If you just want to make…