Semi-Mastered (Not Rank, just skill) Top Laner: Looking for HELP

Hi, my name is Warcrusader and I am looking for help on how to advance my top laning skills and start using my skills in Team Ranked. I recently got to liking top and just self-taught myself from there and ran with it. I started playing with Gold+ Team members and I seem to find myself in sticky situations. I don't know how to do a lot of things so I will save time and list them out.

1. Will counter-picking my lane be a thing I should do? Or should I worry about trying to pick a champion that could ( in the long-run) help out my team?
2. After I finish pushing my enemies turret out at around 12 minutes, should I stay in my lane, or roam my lane to help the team take objectives
3. If smite top where to be a good thing to use, I know they wouldn't work on all champs, especially the escape champs. When or who should I use smite top against if I where to use it.
4. I have recently started to try out different top champs like Vayne, Twisted Fate, Fiddlesticks, and others. I am trying this just to see if they can have a chance in being in my tier for top laners. Would this be a bad thing to do?
5. Lastly, I wanted to know how losing a top lane can effect your team in any type of way. Winning is an important part of how I play :D. I just wanted to know if I where to lose lane at anytime in the laning phase, how bad would that effect the tedam in gold, objectives, map control etc.?

If you have any questions, message me @ Warcrusader on League! If you want to email me here is this: [email protected]