A1: I’m not sure why they would uncheck “deform” for IK bones, unless they didn’t want IK functionality in the rig…I’m all about me some IK though
A2: For rigs you don’t want to apply modifiers except maybe to bake out you final animation for rendering. But you want to apply modifiers [visually] bottom to top. You’ll get a warning if you apply in the wrong direction.
