Ok, you could have found every single one of those answers by reading some past posts or using a search engine. I'm in a good mood today so I'll answer them for you
1 The Messiah 2. It works perfectly with pretty much everything. I'm not sure on prices, just look around or wait for someone else to reply. Its not to expensive i don't believe though.
2 The Messiah 2 is completely non-swap.
3 To make 1:1 copies of your dvd based games, that you own legally of course, yes you will need a dvd writer. The only feature you really need is being able to write in raw mode, which most do. Also probably go with a dvd-r burner. People seem to have more sucess with the -r's. Many seem to recomend the pioneer ao3, ao4, or ao5, or the OEM versions. The AO5 has some problems with recognising media though.
4 Anything with a dark purple back is good. These are Ritek, Verbatim, Datasafe, and probably a few others I'm forgetting. Not all of these brands have purple backs though. Look at a couple other posts, they'll tell you where to get these. The only one that really stands out in my mind is
www.rima.com
5 You wont need a patch, unless you're going between PAL and NTSC games. That is if you get the Messiah 2.
6 It's all a matter of preference. Its usually a toss up between Prassi Primo DVD, and Record Now Max. Proceedures for these and others can be found at the top of the post listings in a sticky called Recording proceedures, of something like that.
7 Anything version 5 or after has a new, more powerful laser, usually needed to read dvd-r's well.(They have lower reflectivity than comersiam pressed dvds)
8 PAL and NTSC are television formats. PAL is Europe, and a few other countries, and NTSC is North America and most of the orient. Pal has 25 more lines per screen, and different resolution standards than NTSC.