I noticed the same thing a couple weeks ago. Where rightclicking in either position only gave report, and to whisper them I had to doubleclick on their name in contacts or type it in manually. Not sure what happened.
They should take you to the same place – it’s likely that the time you tried to enter via the gate just didn’t require a queue. I’d imagine that the queue would show through either method if it was up (note that I’ve only used the gate once).
That would most likely be badges of honor. You can earn them from kills in WvW (check loot bags that appear where you were at the time of the kill), though they won’t always appear there, or from the chest at the end of a jumping puzzle.