1) A way to find out anything like this is to turn on echo all commands in the script editor and then turn it on and off and see what comes up.

2)This is normal, check your tool options under section spans.

3) Personally I get a NURBS cylinder and snap togeather the top and then start to sculpt my head straight off that. The advantage of this is that you can see the whole head form straight away though the anatomy of this is compleatly void, because it is NURBS you can draw curves straight onto it. Ears can be done in NURBS but not as easily as with
polys, again just experiment and choose a way that suits you.