Answers to your questions can be found in one of the stickies. PLease find time to read them first.

 

Even if the answer is "yes", the main problem will be that once you've applied for a residence card, the Home Office normally has your passport for (officially) up to six months.
What I would do if I could start all over again is:
Immediately after you enter the UK, apply for a residence card. If you decide to send in your passport (the official instructions say you have to), ask for it to be sent back immediately. (You'll probably have to send a fax after a week or so as they don't seem to read any requests of this sort. They completely ignored our urgent request to return the EU passport.) Since your family permit will then still be valid for maybe 5 1/2 months, you can leave the country and come back. Once they are ready to issue the residence card, they should contact you and ask you to send in the passport again. Alternatively, don't send in your passport at all but send a certified copy instead. This is not an officially supported way of doing things, but apparently it has worked before. Again, you'll have the passport and can leave and re-enter the country as long as your family permit is valid.
Both suggestions may or may not work - it's worth looking around for more information. Oh, and there are also people who say that a joint EEA1 & EEA2 application gets dealt with more quickly - that's probably worth trying if your wife doesn't need her passport for a while.
Finally, tank up on patience while still in Germany! ;-)

 

The answer is "yes", but as polkasweetie said, it's all in one of the stickies: http://www.easyexpat.com/forums/ftopic_10179.htm, section 4.2.3. You'll know much better what's ahead of you if you read and digest all of this yourself! Honestly!

 

@arsenal1:

If you are applying for employment in one of the bigger companies, their HR personnel are more than aware that your right to employment is derived from the fact that you are married to an EEA National. The family permit only further establishes what is already a fact: that you are married to an EEA national. Your marriage certificate alone is more than enough. The permit is just a "supporting" document.

 

EEA 2 Application