Dear Stebalien
Re 1: surely, for laptops running Linux, various power-saving tweaks are necessary; I am not even clear that PPD will switch power-state upon power-supply change. But, ah, the page that you linked seems to show that PPD does and/or can do more than I thought.
Re 2: I’ll have to look into how to install PPD.
Your ‘bot’ link puzzled me, especially after I saw that it points to a location that says nothing about bots.
EDIT: I am in danger of de-railing the thread. The forum discussion of ppd-Vs-tlp is here.