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]

so, after a couple of weeks (re)playing Morrowind, I have descovered that I was going about it all wrong in my previous attempt. I travelled way far away and was basically getting my ass kicked where ever I was. This time, I am trying to follow the story, doing the errands for Casius (the shirtless guy), and I am having much more success. It's still fun to just hop a boat and go visit some far away island, but I have learned not to butt in.
This is still WAY premature, but did anyone ever get the add-on (GTOY)? Was it fun to fight or become a werewolf?