I can't answer your other questions competently, but at ng-conf today, in the keynote [1], they announced improvements that drop Angular2 down smaller than 1.x,

I can't answer your other questions competently, but at ng-conf today, in the keynote [1], they announced improvements that drop Angular2 down smaller than 1.x, and that they have plans to continue [1] 9:02 mark in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdlpE9vPQFs&t=9m2s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdlpE9vPQFs&t=9m2s