Auto-entrepreneur tax vs CFE?

I have just been reading through the various posts on paying tax at source in France, and the implications on CFE payable: i.e. if you pay tax at source you receive the three year exoneration on CFE. I just wanted to clarify the following points though.

1. Tax on turnover, e.g. 1% under the auto-entrepreneur for a chambre d’hote, is a mutually exclusive tax to CFE, where the CFE is based on separate factors to do with your commune, professional use of residence, employees etc?
2. Based on the above, if you do not elect to pay tax at source, i.e. the 1% during the year, this does not mean you receive some sort of exemption on the 1% tax itself, it just delays the payment of that until the end of the year, with maximum personal tax payable of 1%? Your point about potentially over-paying tax under the at source option would be the result of deductions for having children in a household etc. which are not calculated until year end - is that right?
3. I am currently doing some renovations on my house, with the intention of opening a chambre d’hote around Pâques (ready for summer), and I was going to fill out the auto-entrepreneur forms now to get started, but from reading other bits and pieces in the Forum, I take it if I request the setup before 31 Dec 2010, these next two weeks may be calculated as my first year of business, in which case any exemptions from CFE for example would be worthless? Given the timeframe I am thinking about, would you suggest that I lodge my application in the new year?