covaithe
Explorer
Just a brief response to address number 2, since I'm still swamped.
Your character has to be approved before you can be awarded any experience. Your DM can choose to award XP whenever they see fit, as long as it's not too ridiculous. Thus, usually a DM will simply avoid awarding any experience until all of the players are approved. If, say, you take three months to get approved, your DM may get impatient and give an XP award, that you would miss out on. But I've never seen that happen, and I can't imagine it happening without some more serious problem that would probably get you kicked out before that.
So, practically speaking, it's nothing to worry about.
Your character has to be approved before you can be awarded any experience. Your DM can choose to award XP whenever they see fit, as long as it's not too ridiculous. Thus, usually a DM will simply avoid awarding any experience until all of the players are approved. If, say, you take three months to get approved, your DM may get impatient and give an XP award, that you would miss out on. But I've never seen that happen, and I can't imagine it happening without some more serious problem that would probably get you kicked out before that.
So, practically speaking, it's nothing to worry about.