I remember reading some SR-fan-fic about a ganger-level guy who got really banged up helping out some people who turned out to be 'Runners.

1 set of cyberoptics, 1 set cyberaudio, a SG link, and maybe spurs later, he was suddenly badass. That's what, 30k cyber?

For gang campaigns, theres a largeish section in the companion, that describes alot of it. It also gives a few gangs to use as allies and opposition, and gives some guidelines of archetypes and availability, aswell as tips for gms. Theres also a bit about how each char can spend a bit of their starting money to start of with more gangers, and the guy who spends the most id the leader. (I think it was 50,000 or so for 1d6 gangers, but that was sr3, not sr4 chargen)

Also, the 10-16 wouldnt really work to well, because sure, the humans, dwarfs and elfs would be like 10-16 year olds, but the trolls and orks are fully mature and built like olympic body builders by then.

Also, for the star, it may just be my opinion, but in many of the worse of neighbourhoods, a few pistol rounds and the odd dead body isnt even worth the paperwork, they'd just dump it in another precints lap, or more than likely, they would realize they were probly SINless, and just not care. But then again, I may have a very harsh dystopian view of sr. And if your playing that it would be a big deal to have bodies start popping up here and there, just have a ghoul, tamanous or a crooked cop as a contact, problems solved.

Finally a practical use for ghouls. A Gang could make good use of even a few ghouls as part-time members or at least allies. i.e. using them for Intimidation rackets, money collections,body disposal,scare tactics,combat, etc...
The ghoul/gang combo would rock!

The gang gets easy body disposal, when necessary.
In an environment like that, a gang member or two might even willingly become a ghoul. Hey, it happened in Bug City.

In my gang-ghampaign I offered the Gang to ally with a Ghoul-Gang in the sewers (well one of my NPCs allied with them and later had it made official and involved the players). They did make little use of them so fare, but the sewers were very helpfull, when the gangs HQ was sieged.
I really like Ghoul-NPCs, especially letting them spit while they speak and have them touching the pcs, gollum-like. My players always go nut´s because they are afraid of infection (not that this is compleatly unsubstanciated )

I also have one of the collage-mates of a new sr4-pc being a Ghoul-poser (which is allso into the goth-scean naturally). Currently the pc susspects the npc (his room naighbor) is canibalizing girls in his room. I didn´t decide if thats really true yet