Forcing our playstyle? We merely delivered a few hundred UAs. Nobody is being forced into anything. As has been said repeatedly, there's plenty of other places to go.
So, if I want to go to sothis for big $$$ long range haulage, is it still going or is it already bomed down or still in (civil) war?
Sothis is still fully operational. Problem you might have is that Ceos is down (at least that's my last info from last week). You can't gain REP that fast anymore by shipping missions between these two stations which means that you mission rewards for shipping garbage through the univers won't be that great. But just try and see. I haven't been to Ceos for a while. Only do Sothis missions. I'm there at the moment and I'm about to do my last run for a while. 34 mio. credits stacked so far and still 180 out of 400 tons cargo space available. If I'm patient, I can push it up to 60 or 70 millions.
Unknown, but it is currently understood (by observation) to be many MA's for each UA... Also how many meta-alloys will be needed to repair Ceos again? ..