1) Some never do. Some take to the prospect of the "first step" with ease. If a crewman hasn't found his air legs after a couple of cruises, he's probably in line for transfer. Of course, some say you don't get your air legs until you've experienced
soroche.
2) Oddly enough, the bilge. Even though water's not leaking in, dust, detritus, and other light objects can be attracted to electroid tanks when agitated, and fall off later when power is removed. These accumulate in inconvenient parts of the vessel, and need cleaning.
3) Governments don't have a monopoly on the technology - they are however the only ones with enough money etc to operate the elefacturies where electroid is manufactured. Ton upon ton of coal are consumed in these 'dark, satanic mills' to produce mere gallons of electroid. The plants are also potentially lethal - the enormous current and voltage required mean that 'sparkies' do indeed fall into two categories - the quick, and the dead.
4) Oddly enough, no government had repealed those sorts of laws. Certainly, they weren't in common use however.
5) Interesting question. You know, I don't believe anyone's come out and said they've tried either.
Making them watertight would indeed be possible, but annoying for the crew - there are usually large loading hatches in the lower hull for hauling coal and other material. Airtight? The maximum ceiling Levs can reach (a carefully kept secret) certainly causes some issues, but airmen are bred tough, y'know. All this talk of 'parachutes' and 'air masks' - it's just pampering them.
Submersible? How would you keep the furnaces for the boilers going?
6) Atomic theory?
The ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. It is distinguished from the corpuscle, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of matter, by a closer resemblance to the atom, also the ultimate, indivisible unit of matter. Three great scientific theories of the structure of the universe are the molecular, the corpuscular and the atomic. A fourth affirms, with Haeckel, the condensation of precipitation of matter from ether -- whose existence is proved by the condensation of precipitation. The present trend of scientific thought is toward the theory of ions. The ion differs from the molecule, the corpuscle and the atom in that it is an ion. A fifth theory is held by idiots, but it is doubtful if they know any more about the matter than the others.
7) Bad puns will get you the chance to do the God Walk ...
