Hi,
Sometime ago.. someone started work to overhaul the unit/integration tests, i suppose this work never got finished.
Frankly i'm not all that familiar with the current tests and to be honest my time atm is too limited to dive into that subject...
Too "answer" your questions:
1) Merging both test directories seems wise.
2) I don't think there's any real benefit; your reasoning makes sense
3) I suppose this test server is hosted by James. I agree that it should be available to all developers or the test should be changed.
4) Return-codes are an issue with the CLI, so yes output parsing should probably be added
5) Yes
So, If you have an interest in improving Cobblers quality and are willing to step up and improve the test framework i'm all for that.