Hi @fin150, welcome to the forums! 
And thanks for the excellent questions, let’s run through theme one-by-one.
Yep, this is low hanging fruit for Ragdoll. Each Marker will have a property called “Behaviour” that can be either Animated or Simulated. Keyframe this attribute to go from Animated to Simulated, and it will do exactly this.
Furthermore, all markers part of the same character will have a “group” with the same property, that affects all Markers part of the same group. So you can set keyframes on a single property to achieve this effect.
Here are some related forum posts.
- https://forums.ragdolldynamics.com/t/recommended-way-to-fling-a-charscter-to-a-wall/1112/2
- https://forums.ragdolldynamics.com/t/animating-reaction-to-blow-over-existing-keyframe-animation/1099/12
It can be used to set poses at any frame, so you can use it to animate. At the moment, it’s possible that you get euler flipping when you do, let us know if that’s the case, we’ve got a cure for this too.
That seems like an apt description, yes.
Yes, you can upgrade from the $99 to the $199, just shoot us an email with your serial and you’ll get a payment link for the difference, licencing@ragdolldynamics.com
Our pleasure. 