You have posed 10 questions, and I will attempt to answer them one at a time. Socrates provided two basic tools, the first being the Socratic method of questioning to find the underlying truth and expose rhetoric. The second is his creed in speech which says only speak when on of the three following statements is true: 1) have you made sure that what you are saying is true, 2) is what you are saying good or 3) is what you are saying useful? These ground rules helps us to avoid rhetoric or seeking flattery.
Was it ten the number of questions I asked? Is that number, 10, relevant to the Socratic method of questioning? Or is it not rather the quality of the question and also the answer that will prevail in any truth, if truth can really be had in our physical world? And may we not just ignore situations of needing to get at any underlying truth, when the truth is just there, staring us in the face, and we cannot recognize it, and therefore we start digging needless holes, searching for it? Does not one need to recognize just what truth is? But I will give you some credit for one of your tools, although this questioning method not really Socratic, as it was in vogue before Socrates got his first diaper change; and it's usually referred to as dialectic, although Parmenides called it by what others referred to as, Idle Talk. Parmenides is the Father of that child. As far as the second, to be fair, I cannot even give you a D, as in your answer, the first destroys the rest to follow, because the other two, good and useful, can only be asserted from the truth. And if I know truth, what need is there to ask anyone, or even myself, any questions to get at it, when I already have it in my hands? That is what you are implying, by having someone make certain that they know the truth of what they are asking, is it not? Now back to Rhetoric, and what Socrates though about it. Socrates was the one that said that rhetoric is a a form of flattery, contrary to your opinion that it is not. And this is made clear in the Gorgias dialogue, where rhetoric is the subject of the whole dialogue. And here is a little excerpt from it.
POLUS: Does rhetoric seem to you to be an experience?
SOCRATES: That is my view, but you may be of another mind.
POLUS: An experience in what?
SOCRATES: An experience in producing a sort of delight and gratification.
POLUS: And if able to gratify others, must not rhetoric be a fine thing?
SOCRATES: What are you saying, Polus? Why do you ask me whether
rhetoric is a fine thing or not, when I have not as yet told you what rhetoric is?
POLUS: Did I not hear you say that rhetoric was a sort of experience?
SOCRATES: Will you, who are so desirous to gratify others, afford a slight
gratification to me?
POLUS: I will.
SOCRATES: Will you ask me, what sort of an art is cookery?
POLUS: What sort of an art is cookery?
SOCRATES: Not an art at all, Polus.
POLUS: What then?
SOCRATES: I should say an experience.
POLUS: In what? I wish that you would explain to me.
SOCRATES: An experience in producing a sort of delight and gratification,
Polus.
POLUS: Then are cookery and rhetoric the same?
SOCRATES: No, they are only different parts of the same profession.
POLUS: Of what profession?
SOCRATES: I am afraid that the truth may seem discourteous; and I hesitate
to answer, lest Gorgias should imagine that I am making fun of his own
profession. For whether or no this is that art of rhetoric which Gorgias practises
I really cannot tell:–from what he was just now saying, nothing appeared
of what he thought of his art, but the rhetoric which I mean is a part of a not
very creditable whole.
GORGIAS: A part of what, Socrates? Say what you mean, and never mind
me.
SOCRATES: In my opinion then, Gorgias, the whole of which rhetoric is a
part is not an art at all, but the habit of a bold and ready wit, which knows
how to manage mankind:
this habit I sum up under the word ’flattery’; and it
appears to me to have many other parts, one of which is cookery, which may
seem to be an art, but, as I maintain, is only an experience or routine and
not an art:–another part is rhetoric, and the art of attiring and sophistry are
two others: thus there are four branches, and four different things answering to
them. And Polus may ask, if he likes, for he has not as yet been informed, what
part of flattery is rhetoric: he did not see that I had not yet answered him when
he proceeded to ask a further question: Whether I do not think rhetoric a fine
thing? But I shall not tell him whether rhetoric is a fine thing or not, until I
have first answered, ’What is rhetoric?’ For that would not be right, Polus; but
I shall be happy to answer, if you will ask me, What part of flattery is rhetoric?
POLUS: I will ask and do you answer? What part of flattery is rhetoric?
SOCRATES: Will you understand my answer? Rhetoric, according to my
view, is the ghost or counterfeit of a part of politics.