Newb questions about tools

  1. How reliable are these user-made tools?

Most tools have been made to solve one problem and one problem only - they tend to “just work”. But like abissus points out, the forum is your most valuable way to judge how stable a tool might be, and whether it’s actively developed (potential bugs being fixed, and so on).

  1. What are the essentials? The tools that pretty much all the veterans use?

Good question, and worthy of a separate thread - any answer would depend on personal preference, really.
For example, I always install bystrano’s AutoClonePatternsand joule’s AliasIdenticalTracks.