How to make Adsense ready, WP-based, non "MFA" authority sites?

Hi everyone,

I've been doing a lot of reading here in this forum, and there's so much information that I don't know what to think anymore.

While I'm keen on the idea of microniche sites, I might also like to try build larger "authority" sites which still use adsense as their monetization method.

For all the information I've read, I'm experiencing "information overload", and would love it if the Adsense experts here could help me out.

1. I favor WordPress; it's easy to install, and easy to add content to. Can someone suggest easy to use, well performing, non-spammy looking WP themes that do well with Adsense?

2. Avoiding De-Indexing: Some people here have said content matters more to Google; others have said it's the site format. Rather than take a side, I'd err on both sides of that argument. Content, I don't think would be a problem for me. If I focused on creating larger sites with a lot of content, I could create dozens or hundreds of posts related to my keyword.

However, what format (or Wordpress template(s)) are best to pass the Google team's quick scans? I know there's a lot of debate about what an "MFA" site is, but what about what it isn't? I want to try building sites that perform well with Adsense, but don't look like anything that would be glared upon by Google.

3. Choosing niches/keywords. Is it really as simple as using Micro Niche Finder to locate phrases that have low SOC and decent exact local monthly search volume, using SpyFu to determine if advertisers are bidding well on the phrase, and (if necessary - but tell me if it's not a necessary step), using Market Samurai to check how many backlinks for the phrase I'm trying to rank for the top results in Google have?

4. Can I start small with such sites? Is it okay to make a page with, say, 5 posts, and add to it from there?

5. If I'm planning to make such a site larger, eventually, is a search volume of at least 2, 000 big enough - or is that more an appropriate figure for microniche sites I intend to keep small?

6. With an "authority site", does it make more sense to keep it like a blog with whole lot of posts, or lots of individual pages?

7. Regardless of if it was posts or pages, should each post, or page, have Adsense ads at the top of them, or should all the ads be just on the index page?

8. Where is the best place to put ads (top, middle, bottom, left, right, etc.)?

Lots of questions, I know; but if I try and do some bigger sites myself, I would like to do it right. Thanks for your help!