Hooks......Don't go there, as owner of several hundred thousand hooks It can assure you it is a fascinating world.
Up eyed hooks originated for dries in order to lift the "gut" off the waters surface and render it less visible to the fish. We now use modern nylons and flurocarbons that are invisible or sink so this is no longer such an issue. I no longer tie dries on up eyed hooks unless a client specifically asks for it.
Straight eyed hooks are less common. I use them for gold heads, streamer style flies and in saltwater.
Dry fly hooks are generally lighter in the wire and slightly longer than wet fly hooks of the the same size. This is for weight reasons as you supposed.
That said, with lightness comes inherent problems of weakness.
I now tie 90% of all my river dries in sizes 12 down to 22 on Partridge or Varivas dry fly hooks.
For reservoirs I use Fulling Mills "All purpose medium" as it is stronger while still being light enough to float a Hopper or Shipmans buzzer. The Fulling Mill all purpose dry is also a good hook but it is not as strong and I only use it for flies that I'm going to fish static as opposed to "pulling ".
Bending hooks with pliers is not a good idea. Steve Parton will give you a lecture on "temper" but in general if you can bend it then so can the fish! Add to that the possibility of breakage in use and its not worth it.
As an experiment put a few different hooks in the vice and test to destruction. Some will snap almost immediately you start to bend
These are brittle and will often be the ones that break in fishing.
Others will not shap at all and can be bent into a straight line. These are soft and can open out on fish.
Those are the two extremes, but show how much variation there can be between one manufacturers hooks and anothers.
Partridge Klinkhamer Extreme are just the job. They are factory bent to the correct shape. Just remember that their sizes are a bit odd. A size 16 KHE = a size 12 L/S dry fly hook in length and a size 14 in gape. I use mainly sizes 16 to 20
Buzzer hooks tend to be too curved for good klinks but are great for other types of emerger. Kamasan B100 is very popular although I don't use it.
If you want to encourage the magpie in you, please put a system in place before you start buying. As I said I have thousands of hooks..all the colours in all the sizes, but if my life depended on it I couldn't find most of them right away. I didnt organise from the start.
The advice from Ron is spot on. I'd seek out the local branch of the Fly Dressers guild, Check out
www.the-fdg.org .
Hope this helps
Regards
What hooks cause I'm stumped.
. From getting the feel of the forum something tells me that it would have probably been more acceptable to swear 
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