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As all the other comments have said, it's a combination of what works well for cable routing, avoiding dust/debris, and cooling airflow. I like the idea of having the devices along the sides with the cables in the middle, though I haven't personally had a setup where I could do that. Whatever way you go, don't forget to figure in some space for actually connecting the cables. Nothing like realizing too late that you can just barely get a cable in or out because it's smashing into the back of the next device. A little bit of dust over time shouldn't be a major issue, though extremely heavy or greasy dust could be. However, if there's anything above the gear that could fall down, it's guaranteed to land in the worst possible spot. Ceiling tile debris, crumbs from exposed edges of drywall, random stuff stored above it, etc. The less chance that stuff has of ending up somewhere you don't want it, the better. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07C6GKQ5L/ is very handy for $10. Not just for keeping unused ports clean, but having the unused ports blocked off also helps avoid putting cables back in the wrong port if you have to unplug them for any reason. "Was that in port 8 or 9? Hmmmm..." They're also handy for blocking off the unused second NIC on a PC to make sure you're not using the one that you disabled in the BIOS or accidentally switching MACs.
Absolutely. For testing purposes, I put my ONU stick in an SFP+ port on my 24-port Dell switch and plugged my laptop into one of the 1GbE ports. It picked up the public IP just like a router would. I recommend getting something like https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07C6GKQ5L/ to plug the other ports. It'll keep random crap out, and should at least slow down anyone trying to plug something in. If you need to be a little more persistent, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DKHCX674/ is a hard plastic version that requires a special key to remove. As others have said, a simple media converter would work just as well for this task, but if you already have a switch you're not using, and it meets all your requirements, you might as well use it.