I'll try to answer as many questions as possible, in a general way (seems a better way).

If you have a lot of projects that are all the same (or mostly the same), its easy to create one then copy/paste to produce more.
Timespan is not a problem- I have planned projects over 18months- 3 years regularly.

Project has tools (must end on is a good constraint) that will show if a job is overdue. You can also set a section at the start of the programme for key dates, which will show you the required and projected finish dates (1 milestone for the actual, and one with a "must end on" constraint will do this).

Yes, you can create custom views that will show pretty much anything you want. you can also split the screen to show different things- I often use Gantt and resource graph to see where things can be improved, that are less obvious anywhere else. there are many others that people use, but these do take a bit of time. (More in deciding what you want to see, than anything else).

as far as using MSP for many projects, dont think of it as lots of separate projects, more a collection of similar ones. If you use the key date I mentioned above, this works well for almost anything.

MSP the Missing Manual I have read, and while its not too bad, it relies on you knowing the basics (and often more), so for a beginner its not really an ideal read. It does have some useful info, but its hard to find when you arent sure what you are looking for!

In terms of help, I am not sure we can give much more. If you have specific questions we can probably give an answer, but general ones are usually very hard to answer.