1) You should say NO because you have not applied for express entry before. If you have applied for express entry under another stream then you should say yes. But from the info you have provided, it appears you have not.
Congrats on the AOR - I am still waiting on mine so no idea on the timeline, sorry.
In principle, there should be no impact. Be sure to mention the withdrawal and reasons for it in all future applications. If I recall correctly, the only way something like this can be detrimental is if you were trying to conceal something from the IRCC; you clearly were not, so, as long as you explain clearly, it should not be detrimental for future applications.
Look at others' timelines and use that as a rough guide and think about the complexity of your own application. It can take that time - it can also take 27 months as the CIC website indicates. If IRCC keeps up the 12-14 months' we're seeing in recent posts, than I think you're on track for Q1 of 2023.
I submitted around the same time- my lawyers handling my application were really explicit not to do medicals ahead of time just in case processing took longer than expected and had to redo them. Hopefully it does come in before that for you though.
