1. The number of nodes is not fixed.
2. The process for node selection is random, based on the amount staked. This happens continuously.
3. The D in DPoS is entirely optional. Anyone holding Tezos can directly participate by running a node. The only cost is the cost of a VPS.
The only real restriction* is a 10000 XTZ minimum for running a node. At current / ICO prices that's around $5k. While that's not cheap it's a lot more attractive than the CAPEX/OPEX of mining hardware.
Also, that $5k will grow by 5.5%++ per year, i.e., no depreciation of hardware and only a trivial amount of overhead.
Those not wanting to run a node (or with less than 10k XTZ) can delegate to a baker. There are a wealth of them available already.
*This restriction may be lowered in the future -- by way of on-chain voting (as opposed to a hard fork).
Some numbers regarding decentralisation: The last couple of (3-day) cycles the number of unique blockproducing nodes (bakers) has averaged just above 200 pr cycle, and is steadily increasing. The Tezos foundation nodes are now down to producing ~25% of the blocks.
I recommend this post for anyone interested in Tezos 'Liquid Proof of Stake'-model: https://medium.com/tezos/liquid-proof-of-stake-aec2f7ef1da7
What Tezos does is merely let you lose a different key to custody funds and to create blocks. By itself this creates the possibility of delegation.
Last but not least, with trusted hardware the difference blurs even more.
The only risk associated with delegation is that the baker will run off with the baking rewards instead of distributing them. Of course, the incentive is low since this can only be done once. The community is active is discussing the trustworthiness of bakers (which, to date, has been pretty much all of them).
The staking risk (risk of losing a bond) is entirely on the baker. This incentivizes them to make sure they're not double baking or otherwise running misbehaving nodes.
This is mainly because a small amount does no damage and is presumed to be accidental, but also helps decentralize since you're safest not using a large staking pool, the most popular client, the most popular hosting service, etc.
Running as a small staker is feasible because the minimum stake is only 32 ETH, you're profitable if you're online at least 2/3 of the time, and the load on an individual node is feasible for a laptop. The computational load increases fairly linearly with the amount of stake, so there's little economy of scale for a large staker.
However after reading that I am pretty sure the current Ethereum Serenity spec allows for delegation as well, so it seems to be on the same level Proof of Stake