No to both, which seems to generally mean we're going to have to just maximize one side of the champs.

Which limits them pretty severely IMO.  On the flip side though double sets and double masteries would be extremely broken.

honestly grateful about this. 

it would be awful, awful, awful in Live, G3/4 tag and high G5/Plat land.

Agreed.  Those are miserable enough vs the Empowered + Awakened champs as it is.

Is there a cooldown on switching forms for those that are not triggered by an event such as everyone on the team dying? If not you essentially get a champion with 3+ more skills which, even if not ideally geared, would still be incredibly useful. 

why did some people not get the shard Gift?

The switch-form moves has a cooldown, which I assume would not count down while in the other form. All other move cooldowns are reset upon changing forms.

I am still confused by Hydra.  But, I think double gear and masteries would be a new form of End Game.  Why make it easy?