These active substrates can actually soften the water, the reason is that the substrate has CEC (cation exchange capacity), and probably a low "base percent saturation". This means that it will extract Ca++ ions etc from the water column and exchange them for H+ ions.I doubt it can 'soften' the water, as hardness will depend mostly on the water you use in the tank.
This is because this is "cation exchange", meaning that eventually a stable situation will result. In the stable state if we added very pure or slightly acidic water pH would rise as the increased conc. of H+ ions in the new water will lead to them being exchanged for Ca++ ions in the substrate.However, after a period of time (6 months or so, I can't remember exactly) the effect wore off and now it has relatively little effect.
I'm not sure, it would depend upon the lyotropic series for anions, and the anion exchange capacity of the substrate. Looking at this link <NC State Soil Science> it looks like HCO3- is the most strongly bound anion, so potentially it may be swapped for Cl- ions etc, lowering the dKH as well.So from that I am guessing aquasoil will lower the pH and GH, but leave the KH same.
Yes it is going to be like any ion exchange resin etc, how long it remains active for is going to depend upon the salts concentration in the water. If you have high conductivity, alkaline water it softening effects are going to be fairly short-lived.With the effect lasting 6 months it can not be a long term way of lowering the pH,GH and KH.