2. I would like the math environment to be as close to the LaTeX AMS environment as possible. I have figured out how to download the t- amsl module and can successfully invoke it as long as the t-amsl.tex file is in the same folder as my document files.
Others have already answered on how to "install t-amsl.tex" so I will not go into that. Context has a much improved math support since Giuseppe Bilotta wrote t-amsl.tex. I think it is better to use the "native" math environments of context which provide a lot more features. The syntax does not follow the latex ams syntax, but like everything in Context you can customize the behaviour a lot. You can look at http://dl.contextgarden.net/myway/mathalign.pdf which contains some examples of using the built-in context support. Aditya