New to the IFD w/questions

I just replaced my GNS430W with the IFD440 and so far I'm doing ok with the unit, still a little slow with the unit as compared to my 430 but I'm getting there.  Been doing a handful of VFR flights and shooting practice approaches to get a feel for how things are going to sequence, and so far I've been pretty good.

When I had my 430 installed I had 5 annunciators connected as since they were in the pannel from the IFR Loran which was removed for the 430, they are labeled HSI displays GPS when lit), Message, Integrity, approach, and Waypoint.  When I try shooting an approach my panel looks like a Christmas tree, I get message, approach and waypoint all light up, (plus HSI indicator). I think this is the expected behavior as the GPS was alerting me to class D airspace ahead for the message, waypoint as I was at or approaching an approach waypoint, and approach as approach was active.  I thought that if I acknowledged the airspace alert the message would go out, it didn't, I was doing these approaches at MMU which is a Class D with CDW just to the north and sits right under the NY Class B.

Second question, on the 430 I had a page for a "Vertical Navigation" and if I simply chose direct to I would get a message telling me I should start my descent to arrive at my destination say 2000 ft  and 3 miles from the airport, not quite sure how to do that, I found when I create a flight plane I can create crossing altitudes but not sure this is really what I want.

Third question, I was looking at the backup files that are created and it appears the file ending in 3 contains the user defined flight plans, I was trying to understand the format used as I would like to simply read and write this file to be able to load flightplans from the USB stick.

Looking for connectivity advice, in my airplane the audio panel is a Garmin 340, the transponder is a Lynx NGT-9000, the transponder provides ATAS (ADS-B Traffic Advisory System)  audio alerts and eTAWS (I believe is TSO'd) both are fed as a single audio line to my audio panel on the DME input.  If I'm understanding correctly there is an audio output for alerting from the IFD440 to provide ATAS and TAWS (non tso'd) in addition to a alerting bell to remind me that I've reached a waypoint or an altitude adjustment point,  I don't see any real need for the alerting bell and the other alerts are already covered, is there anything else I'm missing for this audio out?  Also with the audio connectivity, I know I can listen to the standby frequency of the comm, I already have 2 comm's, does it make sense to connect this standby audio to say my comm3 input? I'm just wondering if there is any real need, I can't see having to monitor 3 frequencies at a time.

First gripe - I've already discovered how easy it was to wipe my user preferences and saved flight plans.  Shortly after getting the unit I got the first database update, and when I did the update I simply said "select all" not realizing this would save the user configurations, routes, waypoints, etc(which were simply defaults) and then proceed to load any saved configurations.  Second update came and selected all and the gps dutifully loaded the new database, the previously saved configurations (which were default) followed by writing out the now default configurations in the GPS.  Now I know for the future but really? the database update, save and restore should be separate pages, or at least clearly different options, not select everything.

Thanks for indulging me with my long winded questions....

-Jeff

I thought pressing the AUX button or the message on the screen cleared the message?  The message on the screen went away after pressing on the message but the "message" annunciator stayed lit.  I can disable the annunciator light itself as it has an on/off switch but that defeats the purpose of having it.

I'm guessing the vertical flight management doesn't work like the garmin VNAV and I guess I'll have to learn to speak Avidyne and not Garmin.  I've seen the thin green arc line on the screen, I was hoping to get a message saying to start the descent, although with all the airspace alerts I keep getting I  might have confused it with those. (remember I'm based at and next to a class D, under a Bravo.

Regarding the audio for alerting, right now I don't see it providing me much because I already get the alerts from other avionics, if as you say Avidyne is adding more audio alerts I may change my mind in the future.