You do RC, that was exactly my thought.
As far as (1) goes, this is a idea that I have no interest in, because I don't that use the is-read functionality, but since you are doing calibre coding as well, could you write out a sidecar file with is-read information and then import it later during a calibre session maybe automatically at startup.
As far as (2) goes, good, because autosort is more important.
