> 1.  Linux to Windows password sync? (I know of "Services for Unix" package
> from microsoft, are there other options?)

If you already have a Windows Domain Controller, you can use winbind (part
of Samba) to authenticate Linux users.
http://www.samba.org/samba/devel/docs/html/winbind.html

> 2.  Is there a better way to provide linux users access to windows
applications? (wine isn't good enough).

I'm assuming you're using rdesktop for your Linux users to access programs
on the Windows Terminal Server?  If so, you'll want to use Samba so they
can access their files in either the Windows TS environment or in the
Linux
environment.
~M