1) Commercial ham hocks are generally going to look all the same. If you find them offensive but still want porky flavor, find yourself a ham bone instead--you'll get the flavor and some of the gelatin, but no meat and just a femur. Ask your butcher, or buy a country ham and harvest your own hock from that--hocks freeze well.

2) Hocks are usually smoked to the point of being precooked when you buy them. The skin is full of gelatin and collagen, so leave it on until you are done simmering and then remove it when you pull the hock out so you get that nice silky mouthfeel.

3) I haven't found much point of doing more to smoked ham hocks or country ham ends than dumping them in, as they're already quite strongly flavored. If for some reason you have a fresh hock, go ahead and roast/smoke/grill it before tossing it in to your soup. Cook it in your dish until the whole mess is done, then fish out the hock, allow it to cool enough to handle, peel off the skin if desired, and remove the bone.

4) After deboning and peeling, either pull off the softer bits (meat) by hand and put them back in the soup, or dice the whole mass up and toss it in. My family did the latter, but then again, Mom's from near St. Louis and snout sandwiches were sometimes on the menu, too, so we were used to the chewy bits.

All of this is predicated on long, low temp cooking. Ham hocks are good in beans and chili, and essential in stewed collard greens. Embrace and enjoy them for what they are--part of nose-to-tail eating.