Before I do anything though, I would really appreciate it if you could reassure me in this setup:

hde = 1st HD
hdg = 2nd HD

/dev/hde5 (boot partition)
/dev/hde6 (root partition)
/dev/hde7 (home partition)
/dev/hde8 (tmp partition)

/dev/hdg5 (backup partition)
/dev/hdg8 (swap partition)

All of those partitions are logical. Is that ok?

Is it neccessary that I deflag hde1 (my Windows partition) and flag hde5 for booting? Will problems arise if I have both hde1 and hde5 flagged?

The /home directory I can setup after I have the OS installed, right?

Should I go with ext3 or ReiserFS? From what I've read ReiserFS is superior to ext3. Does ext3 have any advantages over ReiserFS?