Well, being a beta tester myself, and since the NDA has been lifted, I'll make a few corrections to your post. :)
1) Death- Yes, when you die, you have the option of staying there, and having a priest give you a rez, or you can choose to Revive. This will result in you leaving a spirit shard at your point of death, and you respawning somewhere (depends on where you died, you usually have a choice) with all your gear. You gear loses 10% durability each time you die, and when it reaches 0% you are unable to equip it and must have it repaired either by an artisan or by a Mender NPC. You incur a death penalty, which is shared by all group members, should you be in a group. This provides more incentive for your group to run and have 1 person die, than stand and fight and have the entire group to wipe. Your spirit shard will be automatically reabsorbed after 72 hours, should you not be able to retrieve it. Your stats are slightly lessened by each shard you have in the world, but having 1 or 2 shards out doesn't greatly affect your play.
2) Buffs- Your description of buffs is fairly accurate. You have your mana pool (called Power since both casters and melee use it) and you also have a Concentration pool. You only have 5 concentration slots available, no more, no less. Most buffs require the use of 1 slot. Most buffs though affect your entire group, and do appear to drop when you leave the group. This prevents the buff whoring found in EQLive. It also allow them to make the buffs last a great deal longer (most buffs last 2+ hours). Only the person who maintains the buffs uses the concentration point. So, if you have say 2 mages in the group, they could share the buff duties, and leave more points available to both, rather than 1 of them maintain all the buffs, and the other use none.
3) Quests- Quests work wonderfully. It actually brings meaning to the name EverQUEST. Quests especially right now, will be your primary means of income and equipment, especially at the earlier levels (levels 1 through 10 or 15). You do have a quest journal which works well to keep things organized. Also, your quest "inventory" is seperate from your normal inventory. Killing or obtaining the required mob/item for a quest automatically updates. Also, anyone in the group who needs the item gets credit. Also, you only have a quest waypoint for certain quests, Hallmarks being among them.
4) Loot- Trivial Loot Code is in effect with EQ2. Any mob which provides no experience, also will provide no treasure/rewards. This does prevent item farming by the higher levels. But considering you should be able to solo any mob around your level this shouldn't be a problem.
I'm probably leaving some things out, but this should be a fairly clear picture of how things are CURRENTLY working. Remember it's in beta and things are changing weekly. Some things still aren't implemented, and some things which are, are being changed based on feedback.