1) # Is there a way to do profiling of what is going on in Mozilla? Is there a framework for this?

A. If you're on Linux, then you can try using jprof. See Instructions can be are available at [http://lxr.mozilla.org/mozilla/source/tools/jprof/README.html] On more recent linux versions sysprof can also be used. [http://www.mozilla.org/performance/tools.html] also lists some profiles.