The length of the Hunger Stress track is determined by Discipline.  Does a high Discipline give extra Mild Consequences to absorb Hunger stress the way the other skills do, even though Hunger is absorbed by Physical and Mental Consequences?

We know that water-based magic tends to be entropic or transformative in nature and WoJ has hinted that these magics aren't affected by running water, which is why the Fomor use them.  Ramirez and LtW also use water magic and JB has hinted that they'll be shedding more light on this in upcoming books.

As a quick and dirty measure of how Thresholds affect ward strength, I generally allow the caster to take the Threshold's rating as an automatic Declaration.  A ward doesn't need a Threshold but it does benefit from one.

I generally consider the default ward complexity on a practitioner's home to be Conviction + Discipline + Lore + Threshold, on the assumption that they would use a full ritual casting for best effect without extra bells and whistles.  If they do want extra bells and whistles, they need to roll it out.  OTOH, if the practitioner is notoriously lazy or sloppy in their work (per their Aspects), they would have less.  I'd leave it up to the player how often their character would be likely to renew the ward and how much duration they'd put on it.  This is probably going to give most casters a ward effect in the 10-15 range, which I can live with.