Hi Ron,
Regarding your first question:
I think your problem is that C_SYS on your splices are in wrong orientation:
In the picture above you can see two C_SYS (highlighted in red) which are ENTRY ports of the splices, orientation of each C_SYS will define orientation of connected wires, therefore if Y-axis are not aligned in the same direction the wire will be forced to twist. What you need to do is to make sure that these C_SYS are aligned (which is easy since you used same model for all splices) or manually define angle for each problematic location using LocationProperties dialog.
Regarding second question:
Wires will always connect to designated ENTRY PORT in Z-axis direction. In order to get desired routing make sure that wire is routed to ENTRY PORT’S C_SYS with Z-axis in direction shown below:
Your description of splice implementation seems to be correct. If you are willing to use “insert splice” you have to define path (Entry and Exit ports for splice) in Set Cable Path dialog both for network and wires.