colour spaces and camera raw

[clintham]

im pretty good in photoshop, but with camera raw im a little confused as its relatively new to me.

my camera is currently set to shoot sRGB in raw format.
when i open a CR2 file in camera raw its default its default space is adobeRGB - 8 bit.
my monitor is set to a sRGB icc profile.

seems theres a lot of differences going on here and i must be making a stupid mistake. surely these areas should be using the same profiles.

also in camera raw i see i have the option to select:
- colourmatch RGB
- prophoto RGB
- 8 or 16bit
- picture size up to 25mp

so heres my (noob) questions:
1 - should i set my camera to adobeRGB as it has a wider colour range when compared to sRGB?
2 - should i change to prophoto or colormatch in camera raw?
3 - should i change to 16 bit in camera raw?
4 - if i use prophoto (for example) is there a profile for my monitor to match?
5 - if i select a picture size larger than the native 12mp my camera takes, what will happen to the image qulaity?

i have done some reading around these topics but it just seems to confuse me further - hopefully the ocuk community can iron out a few things

 

[clintham]

anyone?

 

[clintham]

thanks, thats really helpful. i think i had overread about a few areas and it had me in a daze.
im not doing anything wrong in my current workflow which is a relief. i realise that was a bit of a bumper post and a little technical too. thanks for taking the time to reply - much appreciated