I had been having problems with efficiency as well in my first few AG batches. This last one I took about twice as long to batch sparge as I was doing before. I sparged in two batches. Added sparge water, stirred, and then let the grain sit for ten minutes before draining the sparge water...
I've done a ginger pale ale a couple of times. Used just a couple of ounces of fresh ginger sliced into disks. I always just throw it into my secondary while I am dry hopping it for a couple of weeks before bottling. Has a nice balanced flavor with the hops.