1) agreed
2) not sure. There was shenanigans with the QF9 route that the flight crew wanted 2 complete crews (so 2 captains and 2 first officers) rather than 1 captain, 1FO and 2SOs, which seems to be what they ended up with. Can’t imagine a longer flight they would be able to wangle it any other way. Will see if I can find out. No inside info on the cabin crew i’m afraid. Seems a bit pointless even for IR purposes when the aircraft type isn’t even the one that will be doing it?