I don’t think about loop length usually, I just sample whatever I think will be useful, or mess around with params and see what happens.
I usually record the output of a midi channel in ableton, playing something I’ve come up with, sometimes play in, or using m4l sequencers - nothing prescript though.
I don’t actually think about this at all. I will just record things I’ve made in ableton, like the Granulator example I mentioned - then in the DTII, it depends on what makes sense contextually, i.e filtering - I can further mangle a sound there or just play it back. I just record things I like the sound of, not thinking about where filtering happens.
Again I don’t think of this so much - if I want a synth with lots of polyphony for example, it might make sense to play that in ableton, the option to sample it is also there which then opens up other creative ways to play it. I think the answer to this is it depends, am I just making things that sound cool to sample, or a sound that I want to fit into a piece of music.
Yes I have sessions where I just make sounds and sample them - I want to do more of these in fact, and yes both separate sessions and sampling whilst making tracks. It takes some self disciple to not move into creating a track for me and just to keep making sounds for later.
I’d also like to suffix this with that I’m not an expert, but have owned both DT versions and made quite a lot this way so can speak from experience!
I hope this is helpful!