As part of this card: https://trello.com/c/TnSlPz1j/282-55-improvements-to-file-upload Sam has been completely redoing the UI for upload. Particularly with the focus on multiple file upload and progress displays. However, it will be a dedicated UI for upload not using standard tool forms, so I think what you want can be accommodated well. Hopefully he can elaborate (maybe that card should have some screenshots of the working version?).
3) We then create several news tools, which would appear before "Advanced Upload Tool" in the "Get Data" section:
"Upload file from your computer" "Import files from the web via URLs" "Import FTP uploaded files" "Paste file contents"
I think each of these could be tabs under a single upload tool.
4) To further streamline things, we could replace "Your history is empty. Click 'Get Data' on the left pane to start" in the empty history section with something with links: "Your history is empty. To get started, import data from [your computer], [web links], [your clipboard], [FTP], or by choosing an external data source from the 'Get Data' section in the left panel".
Hmmm... calling it "Upload or import data" might be clarifying.