I am not much of a metal worker so take this with a large grain of salt. . .
I think the answers to some of your questions depends a lot on the metals (alloys, plating. . .) used for your particular piece of flatware. For example, tool steel will harden when you heat it and quench it quickly (dipping in water or oil) while copper will anneal (soften) with the same treatment. Of course you are not working with either of those metals but it illustrates the different working properties of various metals. Gentle and even heating will make any of the metals you will encounter easier to bend but the color may change with some metals at particular temperatures. Some metals will work harden and become brittle if you bend them too much. If you want to try heating, I would recommend starting with the lowest temperature you can get away with and test each different set of flatware first. You could cut off the tines and bowls and do your tests on them. For the gentle curves, I would try bending without heat first. This will take some muscle but is much safer. Bend either over a wide diameter pipe or make a jig as Esther suggests.
As for cutting the ends off, if you have a dremmel with the carbide cut off disks, they would do a good job. I would avoid the skill saw, by the time you figure out a safe way to do the cut you could have done it with the hack saw. If you use any power tool, WEAR EYE PROTECTION and remember every power tool set up seems safe right up until the point where you get hurt! In fact, I (for the most part) have stopped using my dremmel for cutting metal. The direction of rotation of the dremmel always seems to direct the sparks right where I want my face to be to guide the cut, the hacksaw almost always ends up being faster and always safer.
For polishing the edges after the cut, you can get great results with a good file and some fine sand paper. This message has gotten longer than I intended, if you are interested, I could explain the sand paper more. . .