Officially you shouldn't use the title until your award has been conferred. In my case, the university council will confer my PhD in a couple of weeks. My thesis has already been included in the library digital thesis repository and bound copies have been produced. So for all intents and purposes I have the PhD, but it’s just a matter of waiting until its official.

I would be cautious about handing over the data until you are satisfied that you have thoroughly analysed and written them up in your thesis and explored the potential of journal publications. You don’t want to be in the position where you are simply handing over your hard-won data for others to publish and get the credit. If you are working collaboratively and getting co-author on papers then fine.

You haven't started yet. A PhD may start off slow but it gets very hectic. The difference between a 9-5 job and a PhD is that the effort has to be sustained over long periods and certainly outside of 'work hours'.

My post-submission experience is a little different to most here. I completed my PhD part-time over a number of years while being employed full-time in relatively secure positions, except when I was a research associate/lecturer for one year. Now that I have the PhD in the bag, I am in the enviable position of not having to worry about getting a job (or a good job related to my PhD). The PhD has morphed over time from a passport into an academic career to a great personal achievement that may assist my career in an ancillary way somewhere down the line.
After so many years of working hard on the PhD and always having it at both the front and back of my mind to varying degrees, the mental release is just wonderful. But even a short time after submission, I am thinking of what intellectual pursuit or project I should take on next—to fill the substantial mental void now left. Another thing I will miss is the online journal access.

Was no option to defer while she had the baby?

My final chapter summarised my data chapters (based on my original thesis questions/objectives) and I made recommendations for future work. Not forgetting my contribution to knowledge section.

The revising and editing took up the most time. I didn’t do much writing from scratch in the last four week—more rewriting of existing text. There is a point of diminishing returns for how much tinkering you can do with the thesis. Just ensure that your arguments are sound and people can understand what you did, how you did it and why.
Formatting wasn’t much of an issue as I knew most of the tricks and traps of Word. As long as you use page and section breaks and have a rudimentary knowledge of styles, you should be fine. There are always knowledgeable people around who can help you with that at a pinch.

Take the real job instead of holding out for a dream job that may not eventuate. Most PhD graduates seem to end up doing something different to their PhD research and it's usually below their qualifications.

I would take a leave of absence for a year and still work on the PhD during what spare time I had.

Why don't you just contact the person and ask them?

Because he was a world renowned expert in their area of research?

I should have added that it is important to compare your findings to other studies in your discussion for two reasons: 1) it allows you to make a good case for originality and contribution to knowledge; and 2) you will have an actual thesis rather than a technical report.

If your thesis format doesn’t include a separate discussion in your data chapters, then your discussion chapter will need to be adequate enough to represent your findings, especially if you are discussing them in context to the literature.

The Imposter Syndrome, it can affect us all at times. Sure, the work could always be done better by someone else (e.g. an experienced academic, a Nobel Prize winner), but at the end of the day it will be YOUR work, that represents YOUR best effort. You will be the authority on the particular subject matter of your work—not someone who hasn’t done the PhD.

Yes it sounds like a PhD isn't for you. Cut your losses now before you end up wasting more time that could be spend furthering your career in other ways. I'm sure your oganisation will understand. Is is possible to continue on with the research as part of your job there and get it published further down the track?