Spirit Shroud and spells questionsFollow

I will be getting DoD this weekend more then likely have a couple questions for those that have used the Spirit Shroud already.
1> By my understanding using the spirit shroud to change from lets say a 70 Warrior to an 50 Enchanter would you have to go out and buy spells that you want to use?

2> What about casting skills like channeling Alteration and such be at?

3> Are any exsiting buffs, or new buffs carried/retained after transformation?

Any information or links to information would be most apprecated

When you pick a shroud and enter monster form, you get a special AA window with two tabs.

The right hand tab is inherant monster abilities. If you pick a wizard it will have 3 "spells", Fire, Frost and Thunder which are your nukes. Mostly you can't spend any points here, they are just set according to the level of the monster. The three nukes for example will be at Level/5, so picking a level 60 wizard will show fire at 12/12.

The left hand tab is to customize your monster. You'll get an amount of unspent monster AA points to use here, the amount doesn't seem to follow a set formula, the 60 skel wizard I picked got 91 for example. On this tab are the basic player AA's for raising stats plus a selection of ones based on your monster. The skel wizard can select ones to increase fire, cold or magic (thunder) damage, mana regen, mana preservation, spell crits, etc. Warriors get a mix of melee ones like combat fury and the like.

On the right are load and save buttons. Once you pick and are happy you can save the set, then when you pick that monster again you can just hit "load" rather than select them all again.

Spells are not spells in that they don't go on the spellbar, they go on your hot button menu. Part of the reason for giving us 4 hot bar tabs now.

There is a couple of things I am not quite clear on.

1. How can you tell how much exp you are earning while in monster form? Also is this how you unlock new forms of the monster? Me and a friend last night messed around with it. I made myself into a lvl 65 kobold cleric and he stayed as a monk (doesn't have the expansion yet). Anyways went to POM and killed a bunch of dark blues and I did not see the % towards next monster go up. I also didn't notice any exp on my monk when I turned back, but then again at lvl 67 your not going to notice much from POM anyways.

2. Can you gain more AA's per monster? Also does it take AA's away from a different monster if you spend them all on one?

I am quite happy with the monster shrouds, however I found the actual zones to pretty much be another OOW/Gates (bunch of KOS mobs everywhere making it impossible to pass from zone to zone without burning up mass invis potions). I am not real pleased with the zones themselves cause they once again seem aimed towards the lvl 70 1000AA time/oow/gates equiped players. And with the layout of the zones I see it very difficult for pick up groups to get formed (much like with Gates of Discord, don't think I ever was invited to a pick up group there). The monster shrouds was enough reason to buy it I suppose. Really going to be handy when me and my friend go on our little adventures. Monk and a cleric can get farther then 2 monks.

1- On the inventory screen is now three tabs along the top. First is your standard inventory screen, second is evolving weapons, thirs is monster shrouds which shows which ones you have unlocked and how far along you are in unlocking the next one. Exp does seem to be broken though, or it takes a heck of alot to progress.

2- The AA's are not permanent, each monster gets X points depending on it's level, whenever you select a monster you have the points to either spend again or hit "load" if you saved how you spent them before. Every time you select "Skeleton wizard, level 60" you start off with 91 unspent points.