I had a char getting namechanged a few weeks back, I was told that my name was no good, so I chatted a bit with the imm, came up with a new name that I liked and that was that. It's their game, if you don't follow their rules, they have no reason to be nice to you.
As a shifter I'd go revert and then spam refresh preps after you fled and I was low on moves, when he reverts to faerie fire you flee and let him chase you...
I'm sorry but reading the logs of you and Hrue is like watching the special olympics, you feel sorry for all competitors and noone really is the winner.
Ask yourself what you want to explore. If you only need to learn a specific type of areas, say oceans a mariner ranger will probably be great. A neutral bard would do quite well, easy to rank and after fire and ice you can alot of stuff. On a positive note, you will be interesting for larger parties who want to do some hard mobs and difficult areas.
Never really minded the loot system in CF, shit happens you die. Returning to your corpse and finding anything left is a pleasant surprise, but I don't count on it. And if you die to someone in a Cabal, they might take some shinies for their fellow cabal buddies.