I don't think gimbal lock is a thing to worry about, since I use only x and y positions and roll. Yaw and pitch won't be touched except for possible scripted cinematics or such.
About 2)
I haven't decided yet on how large the world should be. The 2D version has an infinite world as far as a float can handle, but this isn't good since all interesting things happen at near 0,0 coordinates. I rejected the Star Control solution of flipping ship position to other side of world as too unrealistic, but all other solutions feel unrealistic too. Still I think I'm going to have the boundaries of the world relatively small since this is an action game and there is no need to travel distances. So moving the camera is probably not an issue?
About 2)
I haven't decided yet on how large the world should be. The 2D version has an infinite world as far as a float can handle, but this isn't good since all interesting things happen at near 0,0 coordinates. I rejected the Star Control solution of flipping ship position to other side of world as too unrealistic, but all other solutions feel unrealistic too. Still I think I'm going to have the boundaries of the world relatively small since this is an action game and there is no need to travel distances. So moving the camera is probably not an issue?