You're correct on all counts.
However, if you're projecting, you still see the auras of living things around you, Awakened or not, and can use Assensing to read these auras for information. I believe you can also eavesdrop and hear the emotional content of a conversation (hearing the actual words would be fairly broken).
You can also attack activated foci with spells on the astral, as they're dual-natured when turned on; doing so ends up turning them off.
Do you have a source for "damaging a Foci's Astral Form turns it off"? Cus otherwise the only way that works RAW is via Counterspell. You deactivate the Focus, which causes the Astral Form to disappear back into the item, and the Mage has to return to their body to reactivate it.
Also, I don't think you can overhear a conversation. The most you're going to get out of spying on people is their emotional state via their aura color.
For OP, the books outright say what happens on the Astral, stays on the Astral. You cannot interact with the physical world in any way. You cannot interact with mundane folks, nor with Awakened who are not at least Perceiving. If they are Perceiving, they gain an Astral Form but it's directly tied to their Physical Form. Which some GMs may let you cinematically damage and manipulate like typical ghost movies where someone develops claw marks before being dragged up the wall and pinned to the ceiling.
And unless Whiskey has a source on that damage stuff, the easiest way to disarm someone wielding a Focus is rolling Counterspell to turn it off. Older editions used to allow people to target the Astral Form of the Focus, and have the damage carry across to the other side. So someone could be wandering with an active amulet or something, and suddenly get hit by a Manabolt out of nowhere. But SR5 doesn't do that anymore.
