Hi,
I user imaxima regularly with emacs22 on debian (I don't think this does really matter).
I never had the second problem you mention, and I solved your problem 1 with an approprrate line in my .emacs file, but I think following the way Robert described it's simpler.
If you prefer, I'll send the relevant part of it by e-mail; maybe with the same user configuration file we will have the same behaviour.
Regards,
Gipo.