IGBTs were designed as flyback coil drivers and have a built in diode protection circuit, so no external one is needed.
They are rated at continuous current levels at 75 deg C. They can handle 10% over for brief periods, but i dont reccommend it. They heat up much less than regular transistors.
Some have a gate voltage of 5 volts, others need full rail voltage to fully turn on.
As for the "You will want a tiny bit of delay between turning one off and turning the other on (to ensure the igbt has actually turned off." They swith in milliseconds. I have driven them at 20KHZ and found them to handle it. Some are rated at 1MHZ but you dont need to waste money on those.
While i havent abused them real bad, i have over loaded and reversed polaritied them and have not blown one up (yet).
If you are switching both neg and pos you will need one N type and one P type, guess why
