LOL - what's that, 7 questions in a single paragraph
OK, I just did it and it's easy. To make sure I got sufficient signal strength, I bought a powered amp from Dick Smith for $20.00, fed my main coax into that and then ran 2 cables out, one into each tuner.
Install your second card, and go into Settings > TV etc and do a complete scan for channels. MCE will ask if you want to run one tuner or two, obviously say two and scan away. When it's done go to edit channels again, add listings to channels and that's it.
You don't have to tell MCE anything from there on in, with one tuner, if you are recording and then try to change the channel it will ask you if you want to stop recording. When you have 2 tuners it doesn't ask, it just changes.
When you want to record from the guide - same thing, with one tuner, if you select another program to record when one already has the red dot, you'll be told you have a conflict, with 2 tuners that doesn't happen, it will simply accepts your instruction to record - LOL - until you want to record a third channel then you get the conflict thingy again.
And that's it, assuming you successfully install your second tuner and MCE scans OK, the rest is handled by the system, you don't have to make choices.
Mike
