What is the difference between gas and dust in astronomy? Is there a strict difference between gas and dust?
In Earthly environment most things become gaseous if heated enough. The temperature of interstellar medium seems to range mostly between 10 and 10 000 Kelvin. Is gas/dust an analog for hot/cold, or does the phase diagram of the element in question matter too? Can metals and molecules be gas in astronomical terms?
Yes, metals and other elements and molecules can exist in gaseous form under the right conditions of temperature and pressure. A "gas" is simply one of the fundamental states of matter, as in solid, liquid, or gas (and a few other states outside the scope of this question). But as a gas, these substances exist entirely as either individual atoms, individual elemental molecules, or individual compound molecules of multiple atoms (e.g. carbon dioxide).

Dust, on the other hand, is comprised of tiny particulate matter that has undergone the stronger intermolecular bonds to create substances like ice, silicates, and carbon compounds that float around in varying densities between the stars and between the galaxies. Since these particles are still extremely small (typically a fraction of a micron across), they can appear to be a gas, but these tiny, irregularly-shaped objects still exist individually in a solid or liquid state.