Well buddy, the way I see it is that if there's an FP request, at least there's some progress instead of just radio silence.
Your question #2 is the million dollar question (though a million dollars is not too much these days looking at the housing market here)
The simple answer to that is, there is no clear answer. We might receive a test invite in the next 3 months, or in the next six months... it is anyone's guess really.
The game seems to have significantly changed after COVID; we are the batch of applicants after COVID; so in a way we are the TRENDSETTERS