Yap that's a bit of what i think also, there is alot of psycological effect, and an attention caller, altough it almost certainly will have a big effect on the price on the mid/long term, so for the holders yes there might be profit, but at least i cannot calculate it :D.
Hard to answer technically, haven't followed also but i think it's burning part of the fees ? the burning in some cases might have some use, or just be burned for some reason.
In a coin like ETH which is competing with BTC pretty much, it's a way to speed up the competition, and it is alot of burning going on.
More than 27,500 eth, worth some $83 million, has been burned in the past week as ethereum closes in on $100 million eth burned.
The network is currently running at 218.46 eth burned per hour, worth some $700,000, with it burning some 4,500 eth a day, worth nearly $15 million.
BTC hasn't done this, It's going to be interesting seeing this developing specially with all the games surrounding and creating a big demand for ETH.