Fix potential crashes and unhandled exceptions in spark-researcher helpers (Batch 84)

[Ra229287]

This PR fixes bugs #2630 to #2634.

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    "type": "bug",
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    "title": "Potential unhandled crashes in spark-researcher helpers (Batch 84)",
    "actual_behavior": "Various helper functions in spark-researcher crashed with raw tracebacks when variables did not conform to expected formats.",
    "expected_behavior": "All helper functions should gracefully check parameter structures and parameter types, falling back to safe defaults without tracebacks.",
    "repro_steps": [
      "Pass invalid types to append_queue_trials in src/spark_researcher/trial_queue.py",
      "Pass invalid types to pending_queue_trials in src/spark_researcher/trial_queue.py",
      "Pass invalid types to pending_queue_count in src/spark_researcher/trial_queue.py",
      "Pass invalid types to _now_iso in src/spark_researcher/outcomes.py",
      "Pass invalid types to log_advisory_outcome in src/spark_researcher/outcomes.py"
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    "affected_workflow": "spark-researcher utility lifecycle"
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  "proposed_fix": {
    "approach": "Added explicit type checks, try-except containment guards, and fallback initializers across 5 helper functions.",
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