Sure thing Peter.
By default, a refresh of Windows 8 will only restore Windows 8 back to default, and you will lose all settings, Windows Updates, and installed programs, but will keep all user accounts and files in your user folders.
Using recimg to create a custom recovery image will now have refresh use this custom recovery image to refresh Windows 8 with as well. A custom recovery image will contain the desktop apps you've installed, and the Windows system files in their current state when the image was created. Recovery images do not contain your documents, personal settings, user profiles, or apps from Windows Store, because that information is automatically preserved by default at the time you refresh your PC.
Questions:
Office and all installed programs will be included in the custom recovery image.
I'm not familiar with these 3rd party programs to create a custom recovery image with. I would recommend to use the command prompt to do so to be safe to avoid installing programs that may have malware or bloatware that comes with them. If you follow the steps in the tutorials above, you'll find it quite easy to do in the command prompt. Plus, we'll always be here to help as needed.
Macrium and Acronis create system images instead of a custom recovery image. A system image includes the state of the hard drive (ex: partitions) when it's created. A custom recovery image is only of Windows 8 itself.
What's best depends on what is best for your needs. A system image is good to restore everything to say a new blank hard drive if your hard drive that Windows 8 is on dies. A custom recovery image is good to restore only Windows 8 on the same hard drive if say Windows 8 becomes corrupted.