1. Do these settings have anything with the server that's running vCenter powering off? If vCenter goes down, I would certainly want my vms to continue running.
No. These settings are specific to the guest and will follow the guest. They are also configured at the host level, not vCenter. So, if vCenter was down the startup/shutdown options, once configured, would stick
2. Why is the startup delay so high? By default it wants to wait 120 seconds which sounds like a long time to me considering the fact that the server takes a long time to bott. Is it sequential meaning that the 1st vm starts 2 minutes later, then the 2nd vm 4 minutes, 3rd 6 minutes later. Hopefully not, but better safe than sorry.
The delay is so that you don't run into a boot storm. So, if you leave the default each guest will startup 120 seconds after other.
3. What does the shutdown delay mean? Does that mean that when I power off my host from vCenter, it'll spend 2 minutes powering off vms before the power cycling occurs. What's the difference between Power off or Shut down Guest? It sounds to me like "press the gas" and "accelerate"..
Shutdown delay is the same as startup delay. Assuming the Host is shutdown in a graceful fashion and you have your shutdown option set to "shutdown guest" all guests will be gracefully shutdown. If you have a lot of guests it may take a bit for your host to power down. Assuming there is a hard failure, your guests will not be shutdown gracefully
