Not readily, you could import an NTSC 360 from the US or Japan. You would need a 2 pin to 3 pin converter plug though

I would recommend it without hesitation. The story is excellent, it is one of the few games that can produce a major emotional response from most of the people who play it. The gameplay is fairly standard JRPG turn based style.

Halo, RE5, Rainbow six vegas 1&2, Kameo, Viva pinata, loads of arcade games

There are a few games that use the vision camera in gimmicky ways such as Rainbow six allows you to use the camera to replace the character's face with yours. There are a few arcade games that are targeted at the vision camera too.

The pro, like the core, became obsolete after the arcade and elite came out.

Really the increase in the price of the Arcade is more of a barrier to potential 360 owners in Europe

From what I can tell this only works if the gamertag could actually be considered offensive. If lots of people complain about it then it will get reviewed. A mispelling is unlikely to be removed. Your friend should wait until they can afford some points.

I have not tried this for videos but if you burnt the videos to a CD/DVD can't you copy them onto the 360?

It prevents piracy and therefore increases developer/publisher revenue and reducing the cost of games (in theory)

But it does get quite annoying

It still runs from the HDD which means that loading times are shorter, the 360 doesn't make so much noise either :)

You need the disk in the disk drive to confirm that you own the game