The red is the visually sign for the status 'Warm', more warmth will but them on fire, at least in a fight.
At least the curse of the boots and most Bracchus equipment only takes effect, while worn. Some curses are more resistent.
Leadership should work on sight like in the old times, with now range limitations. Current Leadership is pretty useless, nerfed to death you could say.
For Persuasion you can always check their stats in advance with Loremaster and perhaps let somebody else do the talking. I have no idea, wich circumstances are needed for wich options. I already had talk with to Persuasions in followup, both using different skills as options. The Persuasion skill now give +4 per point, so is more usefull.
