1. Are we Still choosing our archetype at level 5 and our class at level 20? Or has that changed recently. I am not sure if you saw the banter on the forums, but there are several threads saying that you now choose your archetype/class at level 1. Does this help with the concept of not knowing who you are when you arrive on the beach?

You will choose your class at character creation. We decided that some time ago. The “grow into your archetype and class” idea was one of those that sounded great on paper, but proved to be not-so-great in gameplay, for the simple reason that nobody likes spending 10, 20, 30, or more hours playing their characters, only to find out they screwed up, picked the wrong archetype for what they want to play, or they really don’t like playing a “barbarian” after all that time spent.
We also heard (from our testers and elsewhere) that people wanted to feel like they were playing a class right away, rather than waiting days or weeks to actually start playing as their class of choice. 

Ultimately, it was punishing the player for choices they made when they were new, which is a surefire way to make them stop playing. Think back to all those old adventure games where you had to pick up an item on the second screen, you couldn’t go back, and it was impossible to beat the game without it, and you only found that out after spending a month of playtime on it. Saying, “Surprise, you picked the wrong thing at character select! Try harder, noob!” after weeks or months of gameplay makes people a bit testy.