Does answering questions benefit hubs SEO?

I don't think so. But you get a lot of inernal traffic if the question is related to hubpages or the people here. If the question is generic and covers niche outside hubpages then yes you'll get traffic from google as well.

I don't see how answering questions here could possibly relate to SEO, but I'm new to the concept, so I might very well be missing something. I do think though, that SEO is all in the hub itself, the url, the title, and the content.

I'm not sure whether it improves our hubs SEO or not, but what it really improves, are newcomers to your hub. It's worth answering question and even making them on topics you know well or would like to know more, because if you make an interesting answer, people wants to find out whether you write interesting hubs to. So in that way they come to your profile, and maybe to some of your hubs.

I'm one of those who likes to search for interesting questions and give my opinion.

And i'm sorry, I can't answer the main question here, but I think the answer should be not, because backlinks are to your profile, not exact hub, so it should make sense or if it does, it should be just a little.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.