1 and 2: clear!
3. 'Standard Flight Plans' means real world flight plans? Or 'standard' plans from the addon? I suppose with NAV screen you mean the standard AFS2 flight plans? At first I thought you meant to say standard AFS2 plans are used but those don't have valid approaches.
Anyway, this seems like a major leap forward...! Curious to see where those plans are coming from or how they are created. And also curious if IPACS will stop working on their ATC and start working on weather now instead.
EDIT
Oh, in order to use the AP you have to enter the flight plan into AFS2 anyway: I do wonder how this will work with approaches...? Because as said you can not enter valid approaches into the NAV screen. I fly the Q400 only. How do you fly a STAR and approach without being able to enter them into AFS2 and use the AP? On manual only, following directions from ATC for every heading change...? Very curious to see how that's done...!
Any program that will create a flight plan for FS9, FSX, or XP will be read by this ATC as a valid flight plan. You will be given a standard IAP approach in most cases, but, in all cases you can request a different or specific type of approach. I use downloaded ILS or RNAV approach charts from AirNav. ATC will vector you to an intercept course for the approach with heading, altitude and distance to the marker. You fly the approach and "approach" will turn you over to "tower" with the frequency for landing as you near the airport.
The NAV screen flight plan in FS2 can't be saved but remains active until deleted or changed and can be used for the autopilot.
Approaches are not part of flight plans. Yes, you can specify and use published DPs and STARS.
This is not rocket science and should not be that complicated. FS2 does not have AI so many of the features intended for coexistence will not be a factor. FS2 has a limited number of airports so if you plan to use some of your own, you will need to pay attention to the proper placement and alignment of the approach segment in the tsc file.
I am a user, like everyone else, so I don't have a clue as what IPACS may or may not do in relation to anything. I seriously doubt anything us users do or say will influence any project in work or in any future work. (based on history).
EDIT 2
Last week I re-installed P3D for two reasons: ProATC and Active Sky. In other words: ATC and weather. (Plus of course the Majestic Q400 and Ultimate traffice live. Amongst others.) This new AFS2 addon might help starting up AFS2 again: ATC and realistic flightplans sound good. And I understand it also includes weather (although not the graphics, I suppose...?). The AFS2 Q400 isn't as advanced as the Majestic one, obviously, but it is getting close. Interesting development this is. How soon is sooner btw...?
I would guess you would be happy with P3D and ProATC and Active Sky. I seriously doubt you will see weather, atc, or Ultimate Traffic in FS2 at those levels for quite some time. Just guessing.
I yearn for AI traffic, weather, atc, water, and all those other things every day, but we don't have them here today.
Soft target is this month.