2: never n trust any other coin aside from Bitcoin for long-term goals, most especially the highly centralized altcoin as there are open to external influence just like centralized exchanges are also exposed to external influence.
Writing is one easy thing to do but will you put your money where your mount is? Bears give people reasons to reason like this but will they kept to their promises in the bull market when everything seems to be giving people profit. One thing about altcoins investment is that, there'll always be one better than the one you're thinking will last forever and they can just disappear from the market without much been done. Altcoins has given people some decent profits in the last years but they have done more harm to a large range of speculators as the losses are always more than those profiting.
You a very right, it is easier said than done since it is easy to write than to practice.
But as far as I know, it is better for a newbie to concentrate on Bitcoin other than altcoin since the rate of volatility between the two is with a wide gap.
As you said, altcoins have done more harm than good so ultimately we will need to stay away from such high-risk investments most especially as a newbie in the crypto market.2