Been 9 years...

I last played POE in mid 2015. I really enjoyed the game, played for over a year was pretty active on the forums and made a few build YT videos.

Recently ran into POE2 info and it re-invigorated me a bit so dropped $30 and gonna play the early access and see what happens.

I still remember some basics but it's been so long I assume I have forgotten a lot of the technical details. But hopefully a lot of it will be new to everyone so I won't feel that behind. A few questions:

I have 4290 coins (I don't actually remember what they are called). Will these be spendable on POE2 stuff or are they specific to POE1?

Any value in making a new POE 1 character and playing til 12/6 to refamiliarize myself with some mechanics, or between not being able to get far enough and POE2 being different not enough value there?

Thanks in advance.

Yes and yes :)

A lot has changed in PoE since you last played, so it would really be useful to start a character and see what's what.

Coins in your account can be spent on PoE1 and 2 as it's the same account.

There's a lot of overlap from what I can see. You could familiarize yourself with some of the league mechanics that you haven't played that have modified versions in 2. Depends how much time you have to play before then. If you're just running the campaign might not be that useful.