I actually like that it isn't too easy to do (2). It makes it harder to destroy work you've already done. Having said that...one of the first things I usually do is create a "reset preset" by snapshoting all layers at their zeroed out values.

As far as (1) goes...yeah, it's bugged me that you can't do that too. It would be a handy feature, especially now that some of us are dealing with 6 outputs. Being able to quickly move content from one screen to another would be nice. If you simply want the same content on multiple screens, use the technique of referencing one layer from another that was brought up a couple weeks ago.