Espero que seja uma resposta SIM ou NÃO simples (especifique o motivo)
Q1: importa em que ordem as regras são colocadas no htaccess? Como são itens completamente separados: por exemplo
P2: Se sim, estou aplicando a ordem certa? para acelerar o mecanismo htacces e não sobrecarregá-lo com regras desnecessárias?
Q3: quaisquer dicas sobre o que desativar / adicionar aqui são bem-vindas +1!
# DirectoryIndex index.php /index.php
AddDefaultCharset UTF-8
RewriteEngine on
# Options All
# Options +FollowSymLinks
# Options +FollowSymLinks -Indexes -ExecCGI
# RewriteBase /
#####################################################
<IfModule mod_headers.c>
ExpiresActive On
ExpiresDefault M172800
Header unset ETag
FileETag None
Header unset Pragma
##### STATIC FILES
<FilesMatch "\\.(ico|jpg|png|gif|svg|swf|css|js|fon|ttf|eot|xml|pdf|flv)$">
ExpiresDefault M1209600
Header set Cache-Control "public, max-age=1209600"
</FilesMatch>
##### DYNAMIC PAGES
<FilesMatch "\\.(php)$">
ExpiresDefault M604800
Header set Cache-Control "public, max-age=604800"
</FilesMatch>
</IfModule>
#####################################################
# /page123 and /page123/ will all go to /page123.php
RewriteRule ^(.+)/$ /$1 [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.php -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.php
####################################################
# NO WWW http://www. becomes always http://
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(.+)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://%1/$1 [R=301,L]
##############################################################
# add own extensions that will be interpreted as php
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
AddType image/svg+xml svg svgz
AddType text/css css
AddType text/javascript js
AddEncoding gzip svgz
##############################################################
ErrorDocument 500 /
ErrorDocument 404 /
.htaccess
arquivo do OP . Em resumo, as diretivas de diferentes módulos (e em diferentes contêineres ) são executadas independentemente e em uma ordem predefinida, independentemente da ordem aparente no arquivo de configuração.