No visa was necessary when we transited there in April (US passport and Thai passport). The procedure is a bit strange - they have your name on a list, and collect and keep your inbound boarding pass before allowing you into the transit security screening area - but it works.
Bank branches in different provinces are definitely not different companies. Thailand has only one banking regulator, and there is no separate licensing by the provinces. The idiotic fees for transactions in other provinces are often listed on their fee schedules as "communication fees", and are an archaic leftover from the days - obviously long, long past - when they would have to send a telex to the account-holding branch to pass on the transaction information. This clearly makes no sense in the modern era, but they hang onto it because hey, why not make some extra money if you can?
There are half a dozen duty free shops in the baggage claim area, though they're smaller than the ones before immigration, and MUCH smaller than the ones in the departure area - they basically just sell alcohol and some beauty products.
The US affidavit, which is normally required by the amphur. If the OP wants to try to do a free-form affidavit in which he changes the wording so as to avoid misrepresenting himself, he could try that, but it might or might not be accepted.
He also asked "Is getting a US marriage certificate translated and registered...more of a hassle than getting married again in Thailand?" That's the part I was addressing.
To marry in Thailand, the local amphur would require you to submit a notarized affidavit from the US embassy in which you swear under penalty of perjury that you are single. Since you're not single, that would seem to present a pretty major obstacle.
That person was either lying/joking, or doesn't actually work in the visa section (the embassy is a very large place and the vast majority of staff have nothing at all to do with visas). Numbers go up and down, but in most years the approval rate is around 80% or higher.