1.) you answered question yourself. Roll what you prefer. Obviously the races look different, but you should also take into account the looks of cities. Alliance cities look like medieval cities and horde cities look like prehistoric villages.
(Horde:
http://media.wow-europe.com/vault/wallpapers/orgrimmar/orgrimmar-800x.jpg)
(Alliance: [url]http://www.bigredkitty.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/stormwind.jpg[/url)
2.) Unlike what these noobs here say (:P) races, and most importantly their racial abilities
really matter.
If you're going to roll Horde, there is no debate, you should roll Undead. There's some shitty PvE racials but who cares about that, all PvE racials are trivial except for human. There's no racial for PvE that gives such a substantial boost to PvE performance that it's worth taking the race for.
For pvp, free fear trinket is a huge advantage. For example mirror match rogue/priest, double undead rogue/priest will win if they're equally skilled, EVERY GAME!
Racials will win you games and will win you world pvp. If this game would be about looks it wouldn't be called warcraft, so choose the best race and not the one "you can look at for hours".
For Alliance there's only two options, Human and Gnome. It's less of a difference than it is with Horde, so if you really must look cute you can go for Gnome, but the best choice is human.
If you're choosing another class and have to struggle with other races, undead and human are superior to almost every class except for Priest where Dwarf is better. Trolls, Night elfs and Draenei should be avoided like the plague if you want good racials.
3.) Personally I would take mining/skinning and save the mining mats (or if you're having a hard start just sell them, later on their value will be trivial). Level to 80 and keep those professions leveled. When you get to 80 you can do whatever it is you please to make gold and combine it with skinning. Once you got enough gold, switch skinning or mining over to JC.
4.) No there isn't. Classic wow: maximum 60, TBC 70, WOTLK 80. Buy expansion when you hit the levels and still like the game.
5.) Highly suggest you find someone who wants to reroll who will recruit you as a friend. It's +300% XP and a lot more good stuff. You need to really play together though,
Btw, you can play without adding the gamecard, you can also just start a trial account and level to 20 before paying for anything.
Anyways, I'm not much of a noob helping person and I really cba to boost people through instances and that good stuff, but I can give you gold which will really help you get going. I don't play any more but the account is still activated till Monday (just your luck

) so I can give you quite some gold. You should roll Kazzak alliance for that.
and edit @ Horde being better in PVP; Alliance is the most popular faction for tournament play, it has the best RMP racials(Rogue Mage Priest, one of the strongest 3v3 combos).