1. It's definatley not quiet. I'm still fine tuning mine, if you adjust the air intake it does quiet down. Mine is in the livingroom, so noise doesn't matter to me, but I don't think it would bother me in my bedroom either. It's more of a "white noise" kind of sound. I have a maxi-jet 1200 on mine, with nothing but the heater in the media chamber.
2. I paid $147 shipped including the pre-filter box, which I didn't end up using because my tank is small and I don't want to rearrange all of my rockwork.
3. I would either buy another BakPak or the AquaC Remora, whichever I could get a better deal on at the time. I probably could have paid less, but I was impatient! I have recently run across a BakPak look alike for as low as $60-80. They look identical, so it seems like it should work the same, but I don't know for sure. I will probably give that a try on my next tank.
HTH