You can uncheck the offending ones and CCleaner allows a simple right click of ReCycle Bin to run....very easy.
Yes, but I still think it deletes too much in the standard settings which is why I wouldn't recommend it to everyone.
I used the paid version for mostly that.....the scheduler and auto-updater......but having the realtime protection has from time-time blocked items Avast did not. 
That's interesting. Which items did it block? PUPs or something else?
Here is where we'll have to disagree.......I hate indexing because it thrashes machines terribly.
I don't see any problems with it, the most part could be done when you're away from keyboard and even if you add/change many small files it shouldn't cause that much issues.
Though you might be right since even the Microsoft article doesn't recommend indexing everything, however for me, it was the easiest solution to make my searches in the explorer faster by a lot, since I sometimes don't know in which folder exactly I should search, so I often search directly in the drive or in the explorer search field.
Some day, I've seen the indexing options in the control panel and have just tried it out. I don't regret that decision, but even if it would have failed, I could have still used an image backup or a system restore or tried to rebuild the index with the standard settings.
Besides, if you have a status message like how many elements are already indexed (currently 167410 for me) and whether it is finished or not you tend to be more relaxed towards such background tasks.
..........BUT to the point of the thread......these software "enhancement" tools are for the (no offense) lazy folks that want a one-button fix-it all solution. A little Googling and some posts to good Windows Forums will have insights like the above that users can easily create a regimen that works for them and keeps their PCs clean.
And from my point of experience, newbies with Windows 7/8.x who didn't use any tuning tools/tips and let Windows handle the background tasks usually have faster computers with similar hardware than the "lazy folks that want a one-button fix-it all solution".
