Camcorders with LANC or Control-L are very hard to find. LANC has been phased out some time ago, especially on consumer grade camcorders.
Mic Inputs were also hard to find on Camcorders but a slowly coming back as are Head Phone jacks.
You could look at the Sony HDR-HC9 that has a Active interface shoe which provides a location directly on the camcorder for adding optional accessories like external lights and microphones: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...
The Canon HF S10 found here :http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...
has both Mic input and Head Phone jack.

Depending on which type of PCMCIA slot you have you might be able to add a Firewire card to your Laptop. If your slot is a Express Card you might try this:http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...

That is a somewhat hard question to answer. Most TOP rated cameras are rated in magazines by reader input. Each magazine or site leaning toward one brand or another. Overall it seems that
Canon, Nikon and Sony hold up well on the High end and Kodak, Samsung and Canon on the low end.
It is difficult to give specific models. This comes down to user preference. What feature one person may find important another doesn't.

Unfortunately there is no adapter that will allow you to view miniDV tapes. The only way to play these is on a miniDV camcorder or deck.
You could see if there is a dubbing house in your area. These are places that can convert various types of media to another. Ask they Geek Squad at your nearest BestBuy if they know of a local dub house or call a local TV station and ask the production department if they know of one.