Safari SLOW to launch, FREEZING since iTunes 8.1 update Help Please!!

Question

Ever since I took the latest iTunes update Safari has developed problems, namely very very slow to launch and freezing up on numerous pages. I have done the repair permissions and restarted and nothing has touched this problem at all.
I know there are mentions about this in other threads but I thought I would start another one with the subject line directly reporting the issues.
Any help would be greatly appreciated, even if it is only "wait it out till the next update".

Answer 1

Something is wrong with Safari. It happens alot for my students. I've done a script for them to run to clean things up, it works. (See below) The script runs from a simple AppleScript.app they can dubbelclick.
But When it hangs, I can deselct a lot in Safari preferences and get it running again. I just havent figured out wich of all the parameters that really is responsible.
Script:
#!/bin/bash
osascript -e 'tell application "Firefox" to quit'
#osascript -e 'tell application "Safari" to quit'
kill -9 `ps acx | grep "Safari" | awk {'print $1'}`
rm -f ~/Library/Application\ Support/Firefox/Profiles//.parent
rm -fR ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari*
defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari DownloadsPath "~/Desktop"
defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari HomePage "http://www.sfg.se/"
defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari AskBeforeSubmittingInsecureForms '0'
defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari ConfirmClosingMultiplePages '0'
defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari "NSToolbar Configuration SafariToolbarIdentifier" '{ "TB Item Identifiers" = (BackForwardToolbarIdentifier,
StopOrReloadToolbarIdentifier, HomeToolbarIdentifier, AddBookmarkToolbarIdentifier, InputFieldsToolbarIdentifier );}'
defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari NewWindowBehavior '1'
defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari ShowStatusBar '1'
defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari WarnAboutFraudulentWebsites '0'
defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari WebKitJavaEnabled '0'
rm -fR ~/Library/Caches/*
rm -fR /Library/Caches/*
rm -Rf /Library/Logs/*
rm -Rf ~/Library/Logs/*
#rm -Rf /var/log/*
#osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to log out'
shutdown -r now
exit