There is currently a windowed mode in the game for testing purposes, which may be left in the released game (as an unsupported feature IIRC... don't recall exactly what Lar said).
I don't have a problem with animals dropping gold as a substitution for hauling fur, etc back to town to sell (realism is fine in a game as long as it is not tedious). If claws, scales, etc were more useful (used in alchemy or forging equipment) then I would not mind collecting them.
Other than that, I assume gold would be available from some quests, selling loot, defeating opponents (human thugs and trolls that live under/near bridges would be expected to have gold). I would guess no on the jobs (at least not required ones).
Before balancing the game, Lar estimated somewhere around 40-75 hours playtime, based on doubling or tripling the time taken to rush through in god mode.
Based on DD and BD, I would say you can probably talk to any friendly NPC, but they are not all going to have a lot to say (which in D2ED may depend on quests or decisions made previously).
There are several town and cities to explore; at least the starting village and Aleroth (changed from the days of DD) have been mentioned.
