Yes, a high quality landing page is a prerequisite if you want to advertise well with bing. Having a great landing page increases quality score and in turn lowers your bids while generating more clicks since it will be placed higher then other ads. If you want to see click through rates and conversion rates, I recommend building a landing page that is targeted and relevant to your ad copy.

No you do NOT need one, you can direct link...

However they do help and come highly recommended.

And yes exit pops aren't allowed.

See if the vendor offers a PPC friendly alternative landing page without an exit pop in their affiliate section.

Read here: URLs and landing page policies - Bing Ads

You need PPC friendly page.

It does not matter if you direct linking or use your own lander.

In your page, your are not allowed to use pops or autoplay vidoes.

Landing page is optional however with designing effective landing page, your ads quality score will increase, that will decrease ads cost and improve the chances of quality clicks & leads.