Knowledge and summoning questions:
1) I'm a Conjurer, am I supposed to know what my monsters can/can't do, and what their abilities are before summoning them; or should I first roll Knowledge checks and do some random summoning before even knowing their spells or abilities (which is quite important if I want to summon something useful)?
2) I meet a monster I can already summon. Am I supposed to know its spells/abilities/resistances or I have to roll a Knowledge check?
Knowledge checks on monsters are quite difficult and I don't see how somebody could fully know a monster and its characteristics, especially if a GM chooses which informations are remembered :(
I would run it as, if you know the spell, you know the monsters it can summon and what they can do. This of course only applies to Summon Monster.
Planar Binding and all that requires a bit of research.
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I think you should be able to know what monsters you can summon and what abilities they have when you summon them, but not that you just know everything about every summonable monster. I generally rule that As you are summoning, the arcane or divine power that you are harnessing is presenting you with a list of options of what you can form and the knowledge of what each thing does, and then when you finish summoning, you retain the knowledge of that creature but not necessarily of others. Which is why I say that the casting time is normally longer, because you are going through all of the options. Shorter times represent you becoming accustomed to summoning certain things or types of things [or for a summoner, everything], and you can use the magic quicker.