Questions on Fixed Asset Manager

We use a third party software product for fixed asset management. We are toying with dropping that product in favor of using the built-in QB Asset Manager in the Enterprise Edition. I want to make sure I understand the fixed asset management model.

Currently we have some asset accounts that we have already created in Quickbooks that represent fixed asset categories. We download credit cards and create POs and Bills using those fixed asset categories. It looks like the Quickbooks tool would require us to duplicate those items in the Fixed Asset Item List? Given that the fixed assets can be defined more completely in the Fixed Asset Manager application, why not just have the fixed assets live there?

I don't understand why you have to create them three different places:

1) In Quickbooks as an asset, when you create a check / credit card payment / bill / PO, etc.

2) In Quickbook as an item on the "Fixed Asset Item List"

3) In Quickbooks Fixed Asset Manager as a Fixed Asset.

I understand that the asset manager lets you syncrhonize 2) and 3). That doesn't make it any clearer to me about why 2) exists at all. It seems like an unnecessary concept.

I tried to use Fixed Asset Manager for a while, and it seems badly written. It gives an error message when synchronizing a new asset to Quickbooks that the "Item Name" field contains an invalid character. But there is no field with that name! And the string it is complaining about that is in the Asset Description field has no invalid characters!

Is there a way:

1) To start the Fixed Asset Manager as a stand alone application?

2) To DISALLOW any synchronization of assets from FAM to QB at all? I realize you can make the synchronization manual, but I want to disallow it completely.

We would run FAM and manually create all assets there, run reports, and then do the journal entries if required manually in QB.