Question 1
I find the font easier to read, but I became and avid reader after getting diagnosed and given private reading lessons in the 2nd grade (circa 1977). I suspect I retrained by brain with constant reading from that point onward.
By contrast, my sister who is 11 years older didn't get diagnosed young, and still struggles to read. Though she can read these days, she has a strong preference for audiobooks. When studying, she listens at 3x to 4x speed. Crazy fast. For personal reading she uses 1x to 2x.
Today here's what I can see (and since this is self reported, take it with a grain of salt):
a. I'm a slow reader compared to other avid readers. I read much faster than people that don't read often; I read about half as fast (or less) as my college friends that are avid readers.
b. For sentences or paragraphs displayed briefly (as happens in movies or TV shows), I get so worried about finishing the sentence, I often can't finish in the time the wording is shown. (So in this case I'm guessing I'm much slower than average.) I'd guess this is "test anxiety" [1]. Taking tests as a kid was torture. Example, I was relaxed taking my SATs and got 1250 (did it in one shot), for my ACTs, I was distracted and buzzing around in my head, and scored below the 50 percentile.
c. Answer "right / left" question is not automatic. I always have to think. I imagine pointing from my shoulder through my arm in the direction I'm thinking. (Perhaps every one does this.) I just know there's a small mental pause.
d. I struggle with unfamiliar but initial concepts or names. For example, when learning object-oriented programming, it took a bit for me to grok class vs object. Usually this forces a deep understanding, which in the end is great, but can be a slow learning process.
Question 2
I certainly read by whole words today. The problem (major difference) with dyslexics is the process of learning to read. When learning to read, dyslexics read in "chunks" and by word shape - basically seeing the word as whole, not the individual letters. I recall the uneven scanning. I also recall thinking "who the heck are these other kids learning this?" because I could see no rhyme or reason. AFAIK, kids normally clearly see the letters making up the words. I needed intense phonics training to "get" this.
Education (phonics training) is absolutely critical. Your "mouse"/"house" examples are exactly the kinds of intense flashcard things I went through. Day after day, card after card.
The Dyslexie font should be complimentary. I seriously doubt it would be a substitute. Many fonts explicitly emphasis readability - Dyslexie attempts to increase legibility for a non-standard brain type.
I think the font rocks, and I've love to get my hands on the font to live with it for a while.
[1] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Test_anxiety