PS1 vet, MV newb (simple starter questions)

Hi there.
I'm just starting out in MV and while I'm preparing to settle down with some hardcore tutorial watching, I had a few basic questions on functions of the game that I'm accustomed to from the age old PS1 RPG Maker, but not not finding the modern equivalent of. Just hoping for a few quick answers.
I am dabbling in the Yanfly expansions, but there's a big world of functions to get a handle of 20 years beyond the edition I'm most familiar with.

For starters,
1) Clone Events? - Sure, copy and pasting is simple enough but do it enough times and that's a lot of wasted data. Wouldn't it be easier to direct an event to be taken over by a page of another event, and then clone that? Can you DO that? I have yet to find a way.

2) Event movement to specific coordinates - When directing an event to move, I have found a way to teleport it to specific coordinates but not to walk it there. I have, of course, seen that I can direct it ONE STEP AT A TIME, which is fine, I'll do it if I must, but if I want something to go from 0,0 to 5,5 on the same map, wouldn't it be simpler just to tell it that and let it find it's own route? (I am aware of a Yanfly plugin for movement that I haven't looked to closely at yet, maybe it does this?)

3) Random chance - Something tells me this is not going to be simple. In RPG Maker for PS1 you could set percentage chances that something could happen which were purely random. For example, an NPC could have a 90% chance of saying "bug off, I don't know you" and a 10% chance of saying "I'm in a good mood, have a dollar".
I've seen "conditional branching" but don't entirely grasp it yet. Something tells me the modern version of this is going to involve variables, which I have yet to grasp even the slightest understanding of. Am I on the right path?

This isn't a question of coding but I'm also wondering about resources:
4) Civilian ENEMY battlers - One thing I LOVED about RPG Maker on Playstation was the inclusion of battlers for nearly EVERY sprite in the game. Not just monsters and warriors, but farmers, old people, children, whoever! I've been looking through a lot of great work from the RM web at large, but mostly find a focus on, well, more appropriate things to fight. Does anyone know where to find peasants, old folks, royalty, children, et al?

I'm sure I have more questions but those are foremost on my mind right at this moment. I know I've got tons of learning ahead. Thanks in advance!

1. There used to be a function called Call event that "took over" one page of an event. However, this function was only present in RPG maker 2000, any other RPG maker doesn't have it except for third party scripts or plugins.
2. Pathfinding has never been a thing in computer rpg maker engines. Again, except for third party scripts and plugins.
3. In rpg maker the random thing works through "set variable - random" and then conditional branching.
4. I don't use static battlers, but as far as I know, there aren't any civilian battlers to be found.

Variables are the most important part as soon as you want to make anything more complex than a "go there" quest, so you should make a priority to learn how to handle switches and variables.

I suggest you follow the link to the "starting point" in my signature, it contains links to tutorials like the "variables guide"

Played through the switching and variable demo games.
Funny thing is, I used work arounds for the absence of those functions in RM1 by using up a whole lot of switches that activated one master switch. I think I can live with this new method.