Regarding your questions.
* PHP/MySQL uptime. That’s my main beef with them. The actual uptime is fine (I never had any problem with that), but DBs keep falling, and poorly cofigured PHP quite often gives random 500 error (sometimes it’s singularly random, as in gets fixed on reload, sometimes it disables PHP based site for hours several times a week).
- We are using a cluster platform and we have very good performance when it is up to PHP/MySQL
So how is with these issues here? But honestly. Cause it seems like Awardspace marketing is as such: we give you free hosting, it’s crap, and we know it, but if you switch to the paid plan, it’ll be all diggity! Nah-uh, methinks, I’m ditching you guys altogether.
* Is there any automatic forbidden words lists? Forbidden file and directory names, filetypes etc?
- yes there are some forbidden words, but i'm not allowd to give you th list.
* Is all outgoing connections prohibited on a free plans due to spam (say, can I send trackback URIs rom my blog)?
-The SMTP is off for our free plans.
* Is .htaccess editing allowed in full on free plan? E. g. custom error pages, redirects, mod_rewrite and so on?
-You can use nad edit .htaccess with free plan. mod_rewrite is allowed.
* I read about some countries banned from registring a site (Pakistan etc.), but are they as well banned from viewing the sites hosted here? Do you ban countries/IP ranges from visiting sites (it was reported at Awardspace)?
- we do not ban countries at all but now Brazil is temporary blocked because of DDos
* MySQL DB storage said to be 10MB on comparative table, but only 2MB in the ToC. Which one is correct?
http://freehostia.com/free_hosting.html
* Just to clarify — if I own a domain, and work directly with the registrar, it’ll cost me nothing to set the new DNS here, correct?
yes, if you point the Domain dns'es you can host the domain for free.