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.