Morrowind, blast from the past, yeah Options

[unitself]

Have any of you played and/or finished Morrowind?
I bought it years ago, never got very far, got frustrated and put it away. Well, I took it out over the weekend and made a new character and started over. I am only a few hours into it so I have only completed a few Fighter's Guild quests. I am on "Find me a Code Book" quest for them right now.
Basically, does anyone have any pointers?
1) Is there a good way to spend money on weapons and armour? Does a weapon type have an advantage over another?
2) Is there a way that I can find out what herbs and animal parts do what? For example - What is Rat Meat useful for or what does Moon Sugar do? And how does my character find out?
3) Is it better do join a guild and do all of their quests, then join another guild and then do all of thier quests, repeat, repeat... or roam around and pick up quests along my travels? I am curious because during my last game, I FREQUENTLY got caught by much stronger opponents when I just roamed the roads.

Anyways... any tips?

[DivA]

*nods* cosmic, SCU ~ this is a noteworthy series...i remember playing elder scrolls 3 awhile back, it was a good game for the time ~ though visually, i was more impressed with the pc version; the x-box, though intriguing, looked a 'lil dated...but it's the adventure that counts for something, yes? speaking of which, have you looked into elder scrolls 4 yet? that game looks seriously verified, & the visuals look absolutely stunning ~ especially the forests (ign).. hopefully the battle system would be further refined & expanded, as well as faster refresh rate; but if xbox-360 is what everyone hopes it to be, then i'm game..