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?

[unitself]

thx alot everyone!
You guys are giving me some great info / insight into what I can do better.
btw - I am a Nord. Knowing that I am more of a hack and slash rather than a magic user type of game player, I answered the guys questions with that in mind and it worked out just fine.

and.. sneaky DivA! Slinking back in - hoping no one would notice... HA!

I have seen the pics from the new Xbox 360 version. It looks oh-my-god good. It's hard to believe the graphics and gameplay that we are going to be presented with. Just think how far all of this has come! I remember, when i was a kid, thinking that Intelevision totally blew away the 2600. HA! And now look at what we are presented with.

I thought Elder Scrolls 3 for the Xbox looked ... ok. The buildings and interiors looked great. The scenery (trees, plants, etc) looked pretty good too. The characters... hrm... not so hot and their animations seemed very clunky. I also don't like the way that people speak an introduction to you, usually slightly insulting, but then you have to read their responses to your questions which are often opposite in tone to their spoken greeting.