[armor and weapons]

I'm lvl 80, I have exotic equipment. So, from what I can tell above that is ascended and legendary. I like the post 80 questing but I've died a few times when I killed the undead dragon and other instanced quest stuff so I figure maybe better gear my help. I dont play group content too much as I generally dont have time, but it seems unless I do ALOT of pvp, I wont be getting any better gear.  I'm not sure in terms of gear what to do now.

[noob question]

So, I need to get to pvp rank 20, before I can do ranked matches and ranked matches are the place to get shards of glory, no shards in unranked?

[lost progress instances.]

Maybe an invisible wall? and that is just an example, if someone losses power or internet momentarily, they will suffer the same problem.

[lost progress instances.]

Its a bummer progress isn't saved inside an instanced area, did three of four quests in one of the Balthazar instanced areas, walked a few steps too far and got kicked out, all progress lost. This was very frustating, I know, i know.... be more careful but still, some of them are a bit long to have to do all of it in one sitting.

[forged bastion]

Is this suppose to be a solo fight? if it is either I missed something or I just suck because it took a lot of deaths and a lot of time.

[early quests]

I have a like level 6ish revenant norn, are there no quests before level 10?