I'll play anything I feel like in ranked except for complex heroes that need practice. Like I randomed pudge once and it was terrible. I won't play him again without doing a couple bot matches and maybe a normal or two. Same with invoker, meepo and earth spirit. That's probably it though.
Other heroes if you know enough about dota in general you will probably be fine. Like sand king, earthshaker, mirana, ancient apparition, slark, they all have skill shots but you can still be good even if you aren't great at hitting those skills. Pudge if you can't land hooks you might as well abandon.
Just play whatever you feel comfortable with. By the looks of it, you have a pretty diverse hero pool so this shouldn't be an issue.
I personally think that spamming a couple heroes won't help you increase in mmr and overall skill level, although I am guilty of playing repeats over and over again. It's nice to have many heroes to choose from, and also you know what items/heroes can work against certain heroes if you know what it's like to be in that position. Main reason for not spamming heroes is: what if that hero gets nerfed and falls out of the meta? Not sustainable for the long term.
I think playing a lot is the best way to get better though you can always watch replays, watch streams of players slightly better than you, and just play more. Not going on tilt is pretty important too.
Learn/study 3/4 heroes per ROLE.
this is your best bet for improving and climbing together
Normally you have better chance to win the game with a hero you played 100+ games with, instead of a hero that fit into your lineup but you never played it before.
About examples, check these guys:
http://www.dotabuff.com/players/85732420
http://www.dotabuff.com/players/118305301
http://www.dotabuff.com/players/120916743
They are 6k+ mmr.
When I typed my reply you had only asked question 1. That's just what I do. But if you want to rank up, then yes, you need to stick to a handful of heroes that you are good with and can impact the game significantly. You need a convergence of three factors- being good at the hero, what your team needs, and counter picking. Some people say go mid every time but that's not always possible or ideal so you need to learn a few support roles and other roles as well.
You counter pick within those roles. For example I don't mid a ton but any time I see an enemy pick PA or void and I feel like running mid I'll go razor cus he counter picks them hard.
Sorry to break it to you but Lightknight69 is only a 5.5k player. I know its a disappointment to his fans everywhere. Worse he's not even the best omni spammer on the US servers (http://www.dotabuff.com/players/123338843 is 5.9k)
1) I used to spam heroes I wanted to improve in ranked so I was around 5k-5.2k. Since two three dys I've been randoming all the time and I'm at 5.6k and keep going up. Of course it's harde rto win with heroes I'm not used like ck and huskar.
2) Even if you play only 3-4 heroes you'll improve. Look at bulldog.
3)If you work really hard like tryhard 100% everygame it'll take less time to get better. Tho, nobody get's pro after 300 game of dota.
For people who play few heroes.... Dragonfist, old bulldog, inkdota, lightknight and there's a lot more
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Short summary about me:
I had a 1 year brake from Dota 2 (had maybe 600 games before that in total) and started playing 4 months ago. Callibrated at 3.9k-4k which was ok I thought was ok and then dropped a bit before slowly climbing up, I got stuck at some point I think it was 4.4k or something like that and shit got serious, I started spamming 2 heroes;TA if mid was available or Clock offlane if someone else took mid first @ watching my own replays, got to 4.9k shortly after that but dropped back to my original 'ceiling' ~4.5k by playing different heroes.
So my questions are:
1) do you actually only play heroes that you are comfortable/most confident with in ranked?
2) am I actually improving as a player if I study 3/4 heroes and only play them to increase MMR?
3) do you think there is a limit on how much you learn/you can't improve fast, OR you just have to play a lot?
Any tips with REAL examples what worked for people are appreciated!