>a) are we promised death? (is there reincarnation, immortality or some other form of afterlife?)

This is one of the things I'm still trying to understand myself. I could share my opinions on it, but it's still not an definitive answer, the fact is none of us alive here and now know.

>b) if death is the only route to freedom, doesn't that become the ultimate bind?

I can agree with that, but death would be freedom from the pursuit of death, thereby granting that ultimate freedom... maybe.

I love the Milton quote. While I hold a very high regard for my perspective on faith/religion, I don't feel eternally bound by it. I still have too many questions myself to view it as a perfect summation of my beliefs. I call myself a Christian, but it's not a Christianity like ~90% of people who call themselves such. Where most people view it as if you're joining an exclusive club, I view it as almost the opposite. My faith has made me more free to love everyone whether or not they believe the same things I do. I'd rather err on the side of being too loving and forgiving than to be too hard-hearted against people who don't agree with me. Like you said, I feel a lot of people have started projecting their own emotions and feelings onto their image of G-d rather than trying to understand a will outside of themselves. I'm a very different person than I was a few years ago simply because I stopped trying to make my religion into what I wanted it to be. 

>In the end, are you saying that prayer for forgiveness and unrelenting devotion to the divine is the only way to be free?

In a sense, yeah, but I believe that has to get expressed through love and compassion to everyone outside of yourself, self-sacrificial and all. If I believe G-d shows unconditional love (a Christian cliche/axiom), and I want to be like G-d then I need to be the same.