Achievement pts and fall update questions?

1. Achievement ptsare cool and all but is there really a point to them? I read a while back that MS was going to give prizes, unlocks,or MS points if you reached or got certain achievements. Is there any truth to that? I think users should be rewarded since they are buying and playing the games to get the points the least MS can do is toss a few MS points our way. Any info on achievements pts would be much appreciated.

2. My dashboard was fine and fast before the latest fall update. Now it takes longer to sign on and the information/ads/thumbnails take muchlonger to load the majority of the time. Is this something others are facing, my one friend said his DB got faster with the update? If not is there anything I can do. My connection is great but yet it takes forever to sign in.

Thanks