Considering Genesis - Concept Questions

[shorthills]

Hi,
I'm looking for a reliable way to go from PSD to Wordpress and one of my primary concerns is that if I have a developer do the coding, that there could be instability in the conversion to Wordpress, etc. I thus came across Genesis and I have a few questions.

1) Is it accurate to say that the core of the genesis framework will basically remain untouched, so that if a developer were to do a PSD to Genesis theme for me, that the underlying core files can't be compromised? I simply want to avoid a situation where I have someone code a PSD for me and then have to deal with the theme breaking once WP is updated.

2) When a child theme sold here on SP says that it has "6 colors", is there a way to use other colors, or do these other colors simply need to be added via CSS?

3) Is the general concept for using genesis this: create a .PSD -> find a genesis theme that's close to the layout you want -> convert the PSD to this genesis theme?

4) Is the process of converting a PSD to Genesis more or less complex than converting a PSD to Wordpress? Does having the Genesis framework on top of the WP installation simplify custom theme creation (or customization of an existing theme?)

5) Why doesn't Genesis 'break" when WP is updated? Does Genesis need to be updated before all WP updates?

6) Without getting into the technical ins and outs of genesis, is it possible to create a website with large image on home page but different header image on other page(s)? Again, I'm not looking for the technical answer here, I just want to know if something like this can be done.

7) Can genesis-based themes still use "normal" Wordpress-plugins? Are there WP plugins that are known to interfere with Genesis?

8) I have a strong background in XHTML/CSS and PHP. Is there a large learning curve for going from PSD to Genesis, or is it a process that really needs to be handled by an expert.

Thank you very much!