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Notes -
Civil statutes of limitations aren't put in place to protect potential defendants; they're put in place to serve policy goals determined by the state legislature. If those policy goals change the SOL can change along with them.
Most of the trial related amendments are specifically applicable only to criminal cases. The only one unique to civil cases, the Seventh Amendment requirement of a jury trial, has notably not been incorporated under the 14th Amendment. The Fifth Amendment right to due process has, but I'm not sure what kind of process you're looking for. These amendments only apply to the government, not private actors, so there's no due process requirement the media has to go through to report bad things about you. If they're actually defamatory then there's always the option of suing.
With certain limited exceptions (class actions), lawyers don't come to clients looking to get rich. Lawyers only get involved when the situation has gone so far that the parties can't resolve matters among themselves. You can probably get by your whole life without needing to go to court, and I hope you do. But when you've been aggrieved it's the only option for justice.
Again, that's criminal, not civil, and has nothing to do with the Trump lawsuit. That being said, most civil cases settle before they ever get to court. Usually something has to go horribly off the rails for an actual trial to take place. But trials are time-consuming and expensive and it's usually better for everyone that things don't get that far, since both parties can usually see where things are going. The first possibility is that this woman really hated Trump and refused to settle because she wanted to get a jury verdict. This is unlikely because I doubt she is a woman of any serious means and litigation is expensive. If Trump had made her a serious offer, the terms of most attorney engagement letters would practically require her to accept it. Obviously, it's ultimately her decision, but if her lawyers took the case on a contingency basis then they're fronting all of the expenses in the hope of getting a decent payout. If they're presented with what they believe is a reasonable offer then they're loathe to continue shelling out cash for diminishing returns. If it gets to this point then in order to avoid settlement the plaintiff will usually have to start paying by the hour and fronting money for expenses for all future work. Since most clients aren't that convinced in the value of their cases to do this, they usually settle. Going to another attorney isn't a realistic option, either, because the current attorney has a lien on the case for the value of all the work that's been done up to that point. Any award the new attorney gets would be subject to deductions in the amount of that lien. Lawyers in general don't like taking on cases in the middle, and having to give up a substantial part of their fee to cover a lien is usually a nonstarter. What's more likely is that Trump refused to settle because he has the means to defend the suit and his public stature means that any settlement would be in the news and viewed by the public as an admission of guilt, even if the settlement expressly denied guilt.
Every law put in place to serve a policy goal determined by the legislature. This is a banal statement. The question is “what is that goal.”
SOLs serve two purposes — one to allow finality and the second is to be able to provide an appropriate defense (ie memory and witnesses go stale).
Both (but especially the second) are in place to protect potential defendants. Thus, the goal behind the original SOL was by-and-large to protect potential defendants.
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