I don't remember what level I was. My first playthrough was totally blind. But I think that's around the right level, since you're almost at the half way point. [spoiler]I went into the dungeon instead of going upstairs & ended up at archdragon peak before making it anywhere near anor londo. The drakeblood knight summon was a wonderful farm spot for me. Until havel showed up.[/spoiler]

Not necessarily. Kinda depends where you decide to go first

I didn't beat Pontiff until almost Level 80. cx

Nah. You can easily just blow through most stuff without leveling if you want. Heck, I made a character the other day just to test out this Anri's sword build I read about. I ran through, killed the first boss, ran through undead settlement, ran straight to and killed Anri and Horace at halfway fortress, then ran straight to the light the torches and killed the Abyss Watchers, then ran through to the Catacombs boss before I even leveled, just because I didn't care about the story line on that character. Stats are definitely important, but areas are still doable at lower levels. Normally, I don't do this sort of thing, though. On the contrary, I usually like to take my time and explore and enjoy everything, and I tend to farm a bit before moving to a new area.

tbh levels don't seem like a big thing in dark souls to me, I mean of course stats go up, but they go up very level each level, you would have to do 10+ levels to notice differences