Meaning of の in the の、の と pattern (どうのこうの)

Question

日本人の小学生向けのちびまる子ちゃんの満点ゲットシリーズの文法教室という本を読んでいるんですけれども、

In the chapter on 助詞, under the meanings of の, I found these two sentences used as examples of the いわゆる「並列」の使い方・働き:

死ぬの生きるのと騒ぐほどではない。

and

どうの、こうのとうるさい。

Now, I'm guessing どうの、こうの is the same as the どうのこうの mentioned here and here, but I'm more interested in the first sentence (although I'd like to call attention to the fact that どうの and こうの are separated in the above sentence).

I don't fully understand the function of の here. I've searched all over, but it seems to be such a niche usage that, unless I suck at Googling and searching stackexchange, a decent explanation just won't come up. All my book says about this function is:

並列（二つのことを並べて示す）

I'm thinking this usage might be this definition in 広辞苑第六版, but I'm not sure:

2.(並立助詞)(室町時代以後の用法)

1.事物を並べあげて問題にする。同類を集めたり、反対のものを比較したりする。史記抄「日本には、裳―、ひの袴―なんどと云て」。浄瑠璃、大経師昔暦「宿賃―、米―、味噌―と算用したら」。「貸した―借りない―と言いあっていた」「行く―行かない―、迷って決められない」

2.ある活用語とその否定形とを重ねて上の語の意味を強める。「いやもう、面白い―面白くない―って」「走った―走らない―、ものすごい勢いだった」

So my questions are:

1. Could a native speaker please rewrite these two sentences for me, replacing the の with another, perhaps longer/more common pattern so I can see what other patterns this is equivalent to/what this is an abbreviation of? This is what I'm most interested in.
2. Can someone give me a better explanation of when/what situation you would use の like this?
3. When do you use と in this pattern, and when do you not? And which use of と　is it? Is it the quotative? Is it the「そうすると」の「と」？
4. If there are cases where you don't need と、could someone give me a 自然な例文 where you would use の in this way but without と (without using どうのこうの, please; if you want, I'd appreciate a less idiomatic example like 死ぬの生きるの or anything else)?
5. How common is this use of の, really? Is it usually only found in a certain type of text, like old writing, or certain idioms?

Answer 1

This ～の～の roughly translates to "such things like ～ and ～", and it's a way to list two or more things with a certain negative feeling. It often implies the listed items are unimportant, meaningless and/or annoying, just as when you'd use "told to do this or that". ～だの～だの is similar and often interchangeable with this ～の～の. (～だの～だの can be used with nouns, adjectives and verbs, whereas ～の～の cannot be used with nouns)

と after ～の～の is a "quotative-like" particle explained here. This と can be omitted because ～の～の can work also like an adverb, especially in idiomatic cases like どうのこうの and なんのかの. In non-idiomatic cases like 死ぬの生きるの, it's probably safer to preserve this と.

So the following four sentences have the same meaning:

死ぬの生きるのと騒ぐほどではない。
死ぬだの生きるだのと騒ぐほどではない。
死ぬの生きるの騒ぐほどではない。 (less common)
死ぬだの生きるだの騒ぐほどではない。

With this (だ)の, the speaker implies that talking about the possibility of death is meaningless.

～の～の is widely used in almost any situations including casual conversations, but it's obviously not common in formal business text because of its negative nature.

Lastly, adjective + のなんの has a special derivative meaning. 面白いの何の means "a question of whether it's funny is meaningless", which effectively means "beyond funny". See: Why does ～なんてもんじゃない / ～のなんのって mean とても？