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Real-time preference center & managing preference center topics

Wrapping my head around Real Time preference center and have a few questions re: how to align this with customer expectations for a subscription center & user expectations for list management.

Business needs

Several different public mailing lists allowing customers control over what emails they receive
Most contacts are added to the lists automatically when they are created, via both marketing forms and from the CRM
They should be able to remove themselves from the given lists/topics via a subscription/preference center
Strong desire to use Real Time marketing features rather than Outbound but not mandatory

Questions:

I *think* if the compliance setting is Non-Restrictive for commercial email and I send a commercial email + specific topic (let's say /Newsletter Updates/), all contacts who had NOT opted out of /Newsletter Updates/ would receive that email - is that correct?
What mechanisms do I have for auto-adding all Contacts to specific Topics in RT (maybe this is a non-viable solution, as they are either opted in, agnostic, or opted out) OR for auto-adding to subscription center lists in Real Time?
It looks like one path could be use a preference setting where checking the box opts the contact OUT of the specific topic. This is kind of the behavior I want (everyone gets it by default, but can opt out in the preference center). My concern is that checking a box to opt OUT of a topic is totally counter-intuitive. What are my options for a preference center where unchecking a box removes someone from a topic, rather than checking a box?
Can I use Topic opt in/out status as criteria in a Segment, or would that only apply to the Journey? Ideally I'd be able to use public preferences as a way to create a segment, rather than relying on the Journey to suppress opted out or non-opted in contacts (depending on how restricted the send was). Is this possible with RT Topics? Should I see Outbound lists available to for use? Do I need to add these as an Attribute > related table...?
Surfacing and possibly managing subscription/preferences within the CRM for sales users - both at scale according to business logic (see Q #2 - is a Workflow what I need for auto-adding to Outbound lists?), and for individual records (someone emails requesting to be removed from /Newsletter Updates/ - how would staff handle this? How about viewing on a Contact record whether someone was receiving (or not) emails sent to that list/topic, or re-adding them back in if they removed themselves by accident and want to rejoin?

Thanks - I realize there are lots of questions here, can probably figure some of this out with testing but navigating Outbound vs Real Time documentation make searching etc awkward right now, and doesn't always contain recommended solutions (example managing lists at scale).

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