That is called rudder "toe in". It is trimmed this way on every takeoff, carrier or shore. Like Velocity said, it provides additional pitch authority. One of the "fixes" that Mac Air provided when they realized the jet had its main gear too far aft and was already aft heavy. As for the stab trim, that is 4 deg NU for Super Hornet and 12 NU for Hornet on a field takeoff. 7 NU for SH and 16 NU for Hornet on carrier TO. So not really neutral, though those deflections probably don't look very significant in pics. If you have asymmetric stores loading in either, you will do a differential/split trim on the stabs for a CV cat shot. The idea in any case being that you put your right (stick) hand on the "towel rack" handle on the canopy bow and the jet flies away. It normally did this just fine, but I always found that when flying a "5 wet" configured F/A-18E/F tanker, for the max 66k GW shot, it normally helped the comfort level to immediately pitch manually to 10-12 deg NU pitch attitude specified in the "emergency catapult flyaway" procedure. Made the water smaller quicker. We had lots of weird issues with high natural winds (likely due to shifting winds and gusts) on cat shots in the 5W where you would excessively settle and the 40' AGL radar altimeter alert would go off. At night, you have about 1-2 seconds to decide if that is real, and if the jet is still settling before you have to pull the handle and get out. Luckily never did, but I had a couple scares, always in the tanker.
And I agree with your initial statement Velocity. Just got my DD-214 today and am officially a civilian as of about 47 mins ago.