Hey, Rita!
I was actually addressing this a few days ago in the following thread. This answers most of it, aside from dealing with the issue of the Holy Spirit giving the interpreter personal insight into someone's life. This is a separate gift, and one I have asked for actually, but it is different from the ability to interpret. It is more akin to word of knowledge about people's lives.
Modern Prophets
This sounds pretty good! Yes, the first two need to be there going in. They are not something you can really just pick up a day or two before you start doing interpretations. You have to be educated in things in advance. I will say however that there will be times when you come across symbolism you've never seen used before. That's where #3 and #4 come all the more into play. But about "identifying" with the person, that's not quite the way I would put it, but I think they are referring to the same thing I do. I actually have a sense about what things mean, but I don't play around with people's lives, so I seek out confirmation that I am on the right track. Most of the time I am, but every once in awhile I find out I am actually not on the right track, and then I have to back up, completely regroup and come at the whole thing again from a new perspective. But I would much rather ask questions and be accurate than guess every time and risk being wrong. It's a ministry, and the strange thing is that when someone sends you a dream you go almost instantaneously into their personal lives, so you need to have respect for that fact. Otherwise you're like a quack brain surgeon, opening up somebody's head and just playing around in there for awhile, LoL.