is "8-12" not "few" for you?
3-5 reps per set for powerlifting training. Competition lifts are a single rep.
No that’s definitely considered to be a moderate rep range. Roughly speaking low is 1-5, mid is 6-12, high is 12+. Above 20 is practically irrelevant.
1-3 is few
Relatively speaking, no. Strength training (as opposed to hypertrophy) calls for fewer reps, around 5 per set.
Many people advise spending about a year doing more sets of fewer (~5) reps to build strength, and then switch to fewer sets of more reps (8-12) when you want to build muscle mass.
Point being, the idea of doing lighter weights until failure is already kind of there in body building wisdom.