Taking a Small Stand for Your Privacy

Doesn't the use of encryption reduce the speed at which data is presented to the visitor?

Encrypting the page on the server and decrypting it in the browser does add more work to presenting a page. However machines are doubling in speed every 18-months making this difference minor. Also browser machines are often idle much of the time.

Aren't certificates intended for commercial sites, to hide financial details and provide some assurance to a visitor that they have reached the official website?

(no answer yet)

There is privacy and there is privacy - which kind is this action actually giving me?

(no answer yet)

Does the use of SSL require each host to have its own IP address, i.e. no virtual hosting?

yes...