Alright so every time I shift out of park and into gear it take a second and then roughly engages into the selected gear. Is there something that needs to be adjusted to fix this?
Also the thing feels like it just wants to "go" aka "is begging to have the gas pedal romped" aka "wants to do a wheelstand" when its in gear, is this something that has to do with the first problem?

 

It may sound simple but your fluid might be low? Not enough tranny fluid will make it act like that. just eliminate that possibilty first

 

That's what I was going to say. But also if there is metal in the pan, the Main Pressure Control Valve in the Valve Body, may be stuck opened.

 

Banging into a gear from park or neutral is most often cause by an idle speed that is too high. Your engine should idle at no more than 600 rpm in drive. I like to set the idle as low as I can without having problems with stalling.
Having the transmission serviced (oil change and band adjustments won't hurt it but won't correct anything). Make sure you have good connections to the vacuum modulator - tight fitting hoses. Too low a vacuum can result in higher pressures.
There are other things that can be done to make the transition from park to a gear less violent but they require adding to the number of clutches in the clutch packs.

 

I love how I overlook the simple stuff and assume its something worse, fluid was about a quart too low thanks to a leaking tailshaft seal and idle was set too high (along with the idle screw being adjusted waaay too lean, yay idle misfires) it was at like 1500 causing it to bang into gear. Got that problem checked off, on to the next one...

 

higjh idle causes that alright. Too little fluid in my experience just delays the shift. from neutral to drive

 

Yea, it was doing both, a lot lot better now.

 

ya, I can imagine that alright. shift, wait, bang :-)