To answer your first question, no. To answer your second, recast the sentence. Ending with the exclamation point is perfectly legitimate.
Honestly, I'm up against that problem all the time--I want to continue a sentence after a quoted exclamation point, but every way I can think to do it looks weird. Since it is correct to essentially use a quoted exclamation point or question mark as a comma in dialogue--"Really?" the group demanded--I suppose you don't really need a comma if you're just using another phrase. It still looks wrong to me. Since a semicolon is essentially sentence-glue, I would think you can generally just end the sentence there and start a new one with your next clause. However, grammatical punctuation (including question marks if what you're quoting isn't a question or exclamation points if what you're quoting isn't emphatic) still goes outside the quotation marks, even in American English.
I'm also, given how rotten my day ended up being yesterday, a little more pleased than is really merited that Jay is consulting me as an expert in something.
