I’m not sure how I did that; perhaps I just added an em space between each one? Or set the Text Wrap to something a bit bigger?

Are you talking about the InDesign files themselves? Or PDF files?
If it’s the ID files, then I’m not sure this can work well, unless the files are on a server. Or, better, keep all the links inside a Links folder, inside the same folder as the InDesign file. (Or put the InDesign file inside the folder with all the images, then open it to auto-relink to them. Then you can save and move the file out again, I think.)

Are you sure that font has numbers in that style? Does it work in other languages or other fonts?

No workaround because anchored objects are considered text. Each character in a story is “behind” the one that follows it.

Here is one option: https://creativepro.com/free-script-to-change-all-numbers-in-a-document-using-math.php

I do not think Active Tables does what you want, but it is a cool plug-in to know about: https://www.dtptools.com/product.asp?id=atid

Sounds like a good suggestion for our podcast obscure-feature-of-the-week-eek-eek!
This has to do with applying XML tags to objects. If you’re not doing XML, you can ignore it.

I don’t know of any way to do that. Normally the trick is to use the hand tool (option/alt-spacebar) and then just move the cursor even just a little bit. That move disables power zoom.

Frustrating, I know… see: https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/114445-adobe-indesign-wishlist/suggestions/1936557-different-column-amount-in-main-text-and-footnotes