I doubt I’d have much to add to what the web site has to say. The gunboats were advertised as being intended for China service when in fact they were meant for the Tigris and the Danube. Brown’s The Grand Fleet gives a short passage on their design.

I wouldn’t rate the Japanese airman losses at Midway as all that severe. I believe they lost 110 carrier aviators while the Americans lost 100. The Americans could make good their personnel losses more readily than the Japanese, but the loss of four premier carriers–that was something that the IJN never recovered from. I believe the Japanese completed only four purpose-built carriers during the entirety of the Pacific War.

Off Samar, the Americans lost the destroyers Johnston and Hoel, the destroyer escort Samuel B Roberts, and the escort carrier Gambier Bay to gunfire. The escort carrier St Lo later fell victim to the very first wave of kamikazes. The major losses for the Japanese were the heavy cruisers Chokai, Chikuma, and Suzuya. The most interesting loss may be Suzuya’s, as she was destroyed by a bomb that didn’t hit her; a splinter came aboard and started a fire among her oxygen torpedoes, and the resulting explosion wrecked the ship.
The OoB for the entire Leyte battle is available at
http://www.navweaps.com/index_oob/index_oob.htm

“The Quincy, Vincennes, Astoria and Canberra were sunk.”
That was the Battle of Savo Island, the greatest defeat ever suffered by the USN at sea. Quincy, Astoria, and Vincennes were all from the New Orleans class, a very good design intended to show increased resistance to gunfire. Shows what happens when the right tools are used in the wrong way.

“I recall there was a battle also when a small auxiliary carrier survived a very large japaneese attack.”
It sounds like you’re describing the Battle off Samar, when a group of converted merchant ships/aircraft carriers woke up one morning to find the largest battleship in the world was sitting in their parlor. There’s a recent book, Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, which has gotten rave reviews for describing this mismatch–a handful of destroyers and escorts charging an enemy force of four battleships, multiple cruisers, and destroyers.

“I recall also that an american pilot in a critically damaged plane, decided to crash his plane into a japaneese cruiser and sank it.”
This story arose at the Battle of Midway about a pilot named Richard Flemming who crashed onto the cruiser Mikuma. Unfortunately, it’s made up. Flemming was shot down, but he didn’t crash the cruiser. Even though this was early in the war, there had already been a case of a damaged Japanese airplane that crashed onto USS Enterprise, though without causing damage. There were more incidents of planes hitting ships in WWII than you might expect.

Correct. The Japanese got a fair amount of information on the attack, but unfortunately I don’t have any record of what exactly they learned. I’ll bet they showed a special interest in the torpedoes and how most of them managed to avoid striking the harbor bottom.
We need to remember that Taranto was not a precedent, from a planning perspective. Under the direction of Adm Beatty, the British had planned a raid in 1918 on Wilhelmshaven by Sopwith Cuckoos carrying 14in torpedoes.

Those with an interest in Midway will want to keep an eye out for a new book called Shattered Sword by Parshall and Tully. It derives much from Japanese source material which has lain inexplicably dormant for decades.

The disparity in resources pretty much cancel any chance of Japan taking out the Allied merchant arm. However, it would have been possible to force the Allies to divert some important assets to cover the merchantmen.
And Japan would have lost anyway, so….