Welcome to the forums
Is it better to interface directly with the MSN COM API or Plus! really does make life easier?
Well from my experience using the Messenger object passed from Plus! is a lot easier, paticurly with C++.
Is the Plus! API justa wrapper around the default MSN API
No, the Plus! API and MSN API are totally different. Plus! passes a reference to a Messenger API object, and then it has its own Plus! API which allows things such as parsing commands/tags, showing toasts and adding to the event log.
Is there a implementation of the Plus! API for C#?
I think there is yes, although I don't think it is an official version included with the plugin documentation --->
Help: Plugins
I want my plug-in to communicate to my PHP app on the server.. what techinique would be the best to use?
I would use HTTP myself, although I think XML/SOAP would probably be the best way.