Only have time for some quick commentary right now....
Can't learn much from it? It's Sacred Scripture. This has to be held in tension with all the rest of it. I'm saying that it has to be considered.
Peter never communicates this message to the other apostles
He does, in fact, communicate it word for word in chapter 11.
he himself, does not interpret it as permitting forbidden foods, but rather, as permitting a forbidden contact between people: [28] and he said to them, "You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit any one of another nation; but God has shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean."
I think you are correct that it is a two-fold message. But he clearly does interpret it as relating it to food at some point, because eventually, it leads to the verdict of the Council which is related to food (albeit for the Gentiles).
Since they included all kinds of animals, they gave him the option of killing and eating the kosher animals among them.
Then Peter should have had no objection to the "Slaughter and eat." command. Why does he react saying, but nothing unclean heas ever touched my lips? He should have just shrugged it off.
And if Peter had presented his dream as a message from Jesus suspending the laws of kashrut to the Jerusalem community they would have rejected it for good reason, indeed, for the same reason that the Church rejects revelations to individuals: it contradicted the word of G-d in the Bible.
I started on this, but will have to come back to it later. If you are Catholic, I would say this. Peter is not a random individual. Just recall, that Christ has given him the keys and the power to bind and loose in these words (Mt. 16:19): "I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."