[maxmsp] Three stupid questions

Hi - seriously thinking about buying Max/MSP, but there are some things in my head that needs to be straightened out.

1) Copy protection. iLok. Is this a must? I have no problems with dongles - my Syncrosoft Cubase dongle is working great. Just heard lots of nasty words about the iLoks.

2) Exporting. In what formats can you export your creations in? I think I read VST and standalone on the site - but, I need to be sure before I click that buy-button.

3) Pluggo. Now this is something that confuses me a lot. Many times when I downloaded stuff made by what I assume to be Max/MSP, you always have to have the Pluggo runtime installed as well. Is this written in stone, and must be for everything you export? Personally I would like my creations to be as self-contained as possible - but if not - no biggie. Can live with that.

4) (ok - I lied) MIDI out. Is it possible to make a MIDI only plugin (VST) that outputs a stream of MIDI that can be used on other software synthesizers? I am thinking of step sequencers primary here.

/Carl