First, I love seeing a new hobbyist having a good time. It's easy for us who have been in it for a while to forget that new guy enthusiasm.
-Props- use what the factory/manual recommends. If you ESC is getting hot, that either means you are drawing too many amps or don't have good enough cooling. If you really are getting 20 minute flights, you aren't pulling too many amps. An ESC actually makes more heat at part throttle than full, so your problem is probably not enough cooling air.
-Don't fly in the rain. Nothing in RC airplanes is water proof.
-Yes, more speed helps with control in the wind. But the plane you are flying will never be good in the wind. That doesn't make it bad though. You just need to pick calmer days until you are really comfortable with making circuits and in control the whole time. Then you can move on to a plane that is more neutral handling and will penetrate the wind better. An Ugly Stick is the best possible choice.
-You should work on both rudder and throttle control. Rudder gives you so much more control than you can get from ailerons alone.
-Color- I've found that orange with black/white accents is the easiest to see. I do a black bottom most of the time so I have a very obvious difference between the top and bottom. Yellow can work well too, especially with a black stripe on the leading edge of the wing.
- wing tubes: aluminum is fine. Don't try to buy wing tubes in bulk. Try not to crash so you don't need them.
-Battery- velcro is pretty standard. On non-aerbatic models, I just Velcro the battery in. On planes I will fly harder, I add a Velcro strap to make sure it stays.

For what you didn't ask- practice with purpose. It's easy to get into just boring holes in the sky, but that doesn't build your skills. Practice perfect approaches for 2-3 flights where you come down at the same place every time and skim the runway at eye level for 4-5 seconds. You'd be suprised at the things there are to learn in that simple maneuver including rudder control. When you are drawing a straight line consistently, lower it to around 2 feet, and then landings won't be a problem for you anymore. Then work on loops that begin and end at the same place and are properly round, rolls that don't lose altitude, and figure out how to do a stall turn. You'll definitely be ready at that point for your second airplane and will probably be surprised at how much easier those maneuvers are with it.