1) As Moi have explained, being away team being challenged, friendly matches have no effect to players. You even cannot check performance of your player at all after the match have finished. Away team manager may only face a small problem that his/her team are locked for most changes for around 12 minutes.

2) I like this. Some managers and I raised similar suggestion before. I personally hope managers can set at least 2 formations, assign different players to them, arrange to use them on different future matches. As there are maximum 2 official matches on same season day, 2 preset formations can meet most of my needs. (Note: I didn't consider association matches because I do not participate or do not fully understand)