n00b questions about the web APIs

I'm returning to the world of web development via the Tessitura web API after a nine-month hiatus.  I have a number of nagging questions.  It'd be great to get some insight from other software developers.  In no particular order:

1. The REST API allows a lot of fine-grained data access.  While this allows flexibility, it seems to require more API calls in comparison with the coarser-grained SOAP API.  This makes me think that the v11 REST API is not ready or intended for adoption by web developers.  To what extent is the REST API ready for consumption by constituent-facing web applications?

2. As far as I can tell, the REST API does not expose constituent login and registration functionality, though it could conceivably be accomplished using the Constituent Service.  Is it the intention of the REST API to use the Constituent Service for constituent login and registration, or will that belong to a yet-to-be-released service?

3. The REST API documentation mentions a variety of client libraries, but it doesn't go into detail.  I feel like I should dig in via Reflector.  In the meantime, could someone give me examples of how these may be used?

4. For the SOAP API, I've encapsulated calls behind a facade.  The facade uses an old-fashioned "web reference".  I have a separate repository / mapping layer to convert the DataSets to domain objects.  Could anyone share some tips or best-practices for consuming either API?

5. Is there a lighter mechanism for consuming SOAP services, as opposed to the Visual Studio web-reference proxy class and DataSet responses?

6. Does anyone have a useful tool or technique for lazy-loading objects from the API?

7. Is there a better (or alternate) forum where web developers using Tessitura can talk and share their code and experiences?  I would love to share my code and examples.