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They tell search engines which of your pages matter and what they are about, and they distribute authority from pages that have it to pages that need it.
They also help readers, which is the reason that survives any algorithm change. A link that a reader would want is nearly always the right link.
The words in the link describe the destination. "Read more" describes nothing; "how to design pipeline stages" describes exactly what the reader will get.
Vary the phrasing naturally rather than repeating one exact phrase, which reads as manipulation to readers before it does to an engine.
As many as genuinely help a reader. There is no useful number.
One with no internal links pointing at it. A crawl finds them quickly and fixing them is cheap.
Yes. It describes the destination — vary it naturally rather than repeating one phrase.
Half an hour with your own data usually saves reading three of these. The guides will still be here afterwards.