Yes. That’s why we need to go to 2.46.0.
No. Numerically they are equal. Both are 2.46.1. According to the semver spec however, 2.46.1~dev is a pre-release and compares less than 2.46.1 (although at the time of writing this, I cannot see that ~ is allowed instead of - for pre-releases. I have to get back on this. See also Version numbering going forward? - #16 by magjac).
Because we state that we follow semantic versioning which doesn’t allow it (although after following the discussions at GitHub - semver/semver: Semantic Versioning Specification for some time I’m starting to have second thoughts about the wiseness to do so).