[husker boxster]

Coasting is generally not a good idea from a safety stand point. You may need that extra 1 or 2 seconds it takes to put your car back in gear in an emergency situation. You'll find you Boxster gets just as good of gas mileage running at 3K rpm as trying to do miserly things to gain mileage. It's not a Prius and wasn't meant to be. Enjoy it as a sports car and you'll find it gets pretty good mileage as one.

I'm not sure how to answer Q2. I could make an argument either way. It's generally accepted that it's not good to run these engines under 2K but the situation you describe would dictate it. Maybe let the car ahead of you get a 3/4 car length lead (just enough so someone doesn't dive in) and then you can run a bit higher rpm to the next stopage.

I'm lucky my stop and go work drive is for lights, not traffic.