5. Can I run a front derailleur and a multiple ring crankset?
Yes and no. Here's where the "normal parts" and the "bigass tires" want to fight a little bit. We are going to spec the complete bike with a single ring up front and ten cogs in back. The single ring is the easy, cost-effective, and very neat way to run this. With a single ring you can run any mountain crankset you like that will work with the 73mm bb shell. Done and done.
You can also run a mountain double or triple crank if you like, but you'll be getting into some tire rub in the smaller gears. You can do a couple of things to counter that (same as you would on a Pug with Rolling Darryls, or on a Moonlander). You could live with the marginal amount of suckiness that would bring to your existence, or you could rid yourself of the smaller cogs of your cassette and run some spacers behind the remaining larger cogs. That will give you access to the climbey gears at the expense of the speedy ones. I cannot remember the last time I was in a 44-11, but that's just me.
Thirdly (or C) you can run an offset double crank not at all unlike our Mr. Whirly offset double (again, like the Neck Romancer or Moonlander) or the new O.D. crank that Bob so deftly explained on Tuesday of this week.