I ws'd some poppy black swan just to try, and they sprouted. I also did the blue ones under lights in my basement. I germinated them in a 20 oz soda bottle under the lights, then very carefully moved to seperate containers (reused yogurt cups) when they sprouted. They're doing just fine. I have them in one of those cheap plastic greenhouses since the basement gets really cold and they seem to be happy.
I'm a newbie as far as ws goes so I can't answer the first question. I did ws some oriental poppy last weekend. If they fail to take I can always go out and get more, so I'm not overly worried about it. If it weren't possible to get more easily, then I would probably wouldn't have been so eager to get them out. Good luck!

Poppies are one of the easiest for me to wintersow. They germinate quickly and grow well, but they don't much like being transplanted so it's best to plant them out as soon as possible and disturb the roots as little as possible.

I read on this forum years ago that a good way to direct sow poppies was to toss them out and about into flower beds on a snowy day. Something about the melting snow going into the ground brought the seeds down, gave them the cold they like, etc. I did do this a few years ago and it worked for me. Problem is this year, when I wanted to do it again - no snow!

But going with the theory that these seeds like cold ground, I raked the dirt a bit in some of my beds this weekend and tossed in poppies seeds. We'll see....

I have also WS'd them in containers. The key is to move them out very early, before the tap root gets too long. 2nd set of leaves and plant SOON. If you leave them and mess with that tap root on transplanting, they will not thrive.

I think it all depends on how far north you are. The poppy seeds definitely need a cold period to germinate. My first year, I went with WSing, got good germination, but they all died after transplanting. You need to transplant them very early and at that stage in my Zone, the earth is still quite frozen, and I usually do not have any area ready for planting at that time so it does not work for me. For the past few years, I direct sow very early, once the soil can be worked and it is still quite cold. I also WS directly into pots and that works well too. I have tried the flinging seeds in fall and spring but neither worked for me, I think the birds got the seed. This year is quite novel: we had extremely warm weather for the last two weeks and I thought I was doomed. Of course it is back under freezing again. So I tried the ice-cube method which I think I found on this forum, and I have ice-cubes of all the varieties I want to sow. This gives them the cold period they need and it's very easy to sow lightly and evenly. So I can take my time, cultivate and sow the ice-cubes when I am ready. I'll let you know how it turns out.

We don't get much snow down here and we never know when it expect it. Its always a surprise! I've read that transplanting them doesn't go well so I threw poppy, larkspur and blue bonnet seeds on Thanksgiving Day.
We had some freezing weather in Dec, and very little or none in Jan and Feb.. I now have poppies and larkspur but no blue bonnets. I think I sowed them too late. This year I'll sow the larkspur and blue bonnets in Aug and Sept then do more poppies in the areas that didn't 'take' in November/Dec if its looking like it will be cold.