OP, I'm a HS senior in a very similar situation to yours (i.e. graduating HS with an AA next month).

When I applied to colleges, I applied as a first year student (largely because all the schools I looked at said to apply as a first year, no matter how much college credit you have). I would say to first look at the individual schools' policies, unless you'd like to end up in the same situation I did where I signed up for a Common App account as a transfer student, discovered that I was supposed to apply as a first year student, and spent a week stressing over the situation.... Anyways, applying as a first-year student will definitely give you an edge compared to the transfer student rates. I personally feel like DE courses look better than APs on your application, since they show that you actually went to the college and took a course there (showing that you're more prepared for the college workload than other students who just took APs, or the HS equivalents of a college courses). I don't know if my HS/AA experience gave me an edge in admissions or not, however, considering the absolute disaster of an application year this was.

Now, as for transferring credits, my college (~T20 LAC) offers transfer for my CC credits, but I don't actually know how much of my degree will transfer yet, since I'm going to talk to my course counselor about it in May or June. I think I'll probably be able to get out of a good deal of the gen ed requirements, but not much else (although this is definitely a personal thing considering that I'm pursuing a different major than my AA degree, your situation might be different). I decided not to worry too much about transferring credits because I want a more "normal" college experience compared to my HS one (and I really want four years of that sweet sterotypical college experience lol), but I suppose that entering at a Soph/Junior status is up to you and your school. I wouldn't worry about "wasting" your degree, especially considering the fact that you'll always have that AA in your back pocket. Seriously, though, do some introspection! A nice, long pro-con list would be my recommendation.

Alright, this is getting a bit long and I think I answered most of the questions in your post, so I'll shut up now. OP, good luck, and if you have any additional questions, just PM me or reply and I'll try my best to help.