I'll answer the easy one first.
"The Great Challenge" awards you a title for your character, either "Knight of D'Lere" for evil toons, or "Knight of Bayle" (I beleive) for good. Plus the gold which you know about.
AA: You get them from discovering new areas, killing named NPCs that you can get experience from, and also from doing quests. (You may also get them the first time you loot certain items).
Ok here is the tricky thing, AA's affect your character class. For example I am a necromancer, so I can put AA's into my damage over time spells, or into my effect spells such as root, stun, etc. Now it gets more complex. Each spell is in a certain "Tree" if you will. You will notice under the spell description it may say something like "Manipulation", or "cure", depending again on your class. If you spend 20 points in that tree you can then buy the spell at the very bottom (it will NOT have any lines connecting to it, but be underneath the spells in that tree).
A necromancer that puts 20 points into his "Manipulation" line will be granted the Prefix "Cabalist" and also the added benefit of having all of his/her manipulation spells cast a heal on their pet for 18% of its total health. (Very handy since its better then the actual necro pet heal, and player heals we get).
Hope that didn't confuse you too much.
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Things I sometimes play...
"What do you want to be when you grow up?"
"I want to be a unicorn!"
"Awww, why's that?"........
"So I can stab people with my face."