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]

I remember reading about the original version being buggy, and that is the version I have. I was thinking about going ahead and picking up the GOTY version because it's only $20 and I am (well I was) having fun with it. The bad thing is that there are two games coming out fairly soon that I know I am going to dump Morrowind for (Fable and Shadow o/ Colossus). Over the weekend, I am going to see if I can power my way thru the game freezes, finish the quest, and move on.
I don't think my room is too hot either and I don't have any trouble with any other game so I don't think that's it. Speaking of hot, the damn PS2... You could bake brownies on that thing. Geez!
anyways...

The quest I am doing is really early on. I have to talk to three people in Vivec. That's it! The guy gave me their names and building locations, I just can't find the person who lives in St. Olms and no one helps me either. They all say, "That sneek? Oh, she's around here somewhere, but I don't know where. Go ask someone else."