15 inch Mid-2010 MacBook Pro freezing since installing Lion

Question

I've had this problem for a while now. It started a few weeks after I installed Lion in the summer. My MacBook Pro would just freeze without warning and the only thing I can do is a force shutdown. I've checked the logs, and these freezes do not log themselves like other crashes, there is no record of them happening. I have also noticed that Apple has identified that my particular model of MacBook Pro can experience an issue where it may freeze intermittently or stop displaying video, and as such they put out an update to help remedy this, which I have installed and the problem still exists.
The freeze appears to happen application by application. One application may freeze, so I attempt to force quit this, but then the force quit window freezes, and then whatever else I click results in a spinning wheel, forcing me to hold down the power button to restart my Mac. I never had this issue with Snow Leopard, it has only started since I upgraded to Lion.
I have taken it into an Apple store, and they could not indentify any issues since there were no logs of the crashes. They wiped my laptop and suggested I try using it for a while without any of my data on it to see if the freezes still happened - they didn't. He then said not to restore my data from a Time Machine backup as any bugs that may be causing these freezes would also be restored. Therefore, I installed every application manually and only copied over my documents and music manually. For a few months, this fixed the issue, but I have noticed that it has started happening again, more and more frequently just like before.
I've also run the Apple Hardware Test that came with my Mac and it found no issues. I've also reset the SMC and PRAM to no avail.
My specs are:
2.4GHz Intel Core i5
8GB RAM
500GB HDD
Lion 10.7.3
If anyone has any suggestions on how to fix this issue or knows why it is happening, please let me know, I would greatly appreciate it.
Apologies for the long description, I wanted to be a detailed as possible.
Thanks,
Nathan

Answer 1

Hello Nathan, Linc Davis,
I have had the same problem, except without Sophos or Google Talk. I don't know if you still keep up with this thread, but if so, I have followed your steps. Any help would be very greatly appreciated:
Step 1
com.vara.driver.VaraAudio (1.0.3)
Step 2
com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper
com.adobe.SwitchBoard
Step 3
com.adobe.CS5ServiceManager
com.google.keystone.user.agent
com.google.GoogleContactSyncAgent
com.adobe.AAM.Scheduler-1.0
Step 4
/Library/Components:
/Library/Extensions:
/Library/Frameworks:
AECore.framework
AEProfiling.framework
AERegistration.framework
Adobe AIR.framework
AudioMixEngine.framework
Compressor.framework
EWSMac.framework
FxPlug.framework
HPDeviceModel.framework
HPPml.framework
HPServicesInterface.framework
HPSmartPrint.framework
MacFUSE.framework
Maple.framework
MediaServerAPI.framework
NyxAudioAnalysis.framework
PluginManager.framework
ProFX.framework
Qmaster.framework
StuffIt.framework
TSLicense.framework
XSKey.framework
iLifeFaceRecognition.framework
iLifeKit.framework
iLifePageLayout.framework
iLifeSQLAccess.framework
iLifeSlideshow.framework
/Library/Input Methods:
SogouInput.app
/Library/Internet Plug-Ins:
DRM Plugin.bundle
Flash Player.plugin
Flip4Mac WMV Plugin.plugin
Google Earth Web Plug-in.plugin
JavaAppletPlugin.plugin
Mathematica.plugin
Quartz Composer.webplugin
QuickTime Plugin.plugin
RealPlayer Plugin.plugin
SharePointBrowserPlugin.plugin
SharePointWebKitPlugin.webplugin
Silverlight.plugin
flashplayer.xpt
iPhotoPhotocast.plugin
npContributeMac.bundle
nsIQTScriptablePlugin.xpt
/Library/Keyboard Layouts:
/Library/LaunchAgents:
com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist
com.adobe.CS5ServiceManager.plist
/Library/LaunchDaemons:
com.adobe.SwitchBoard.plist
com.apple.aelwriter.plist
com.apple.remotepairtool.plist
com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist
com.zeobit.MacKeeper.AntiVirus
/Library/PreferencePanes:
Flip4Mac WMV.prefPane
Launchpad-Control.prefPane
/Library/PrivilegedHelperTools:
com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper
/Library/QuickLook:
GBQLGenerator.qlgenerator
iWork.qlgenerator
/Library/QuickTime:
AppleIntermediateCodec.component
AppleMPEG2Codec.component
DVCPROHDCodec.component
DVCPROHDMuxer.component
DVCPROHDVideoDigitizer.component
DVCPROHDVideoOutput.component
DVCPROHDVideoOutputClock.component
DVCPROHDVideoOutputCodec.component
DesktopVideoOut.component
FCP Uncompressed 422.component
FLACImport.component
Flip4Mac WMV Advanced.component
Flip4Mac WMV Export.component
Flip4Mac WMV Import.component
LiveType.component
SoundboothScoreCodec.component
XiphQT.component
/Library/ScriptingAdditions:
Adobe Unit Types.osax
/Library/Spotlight:
GBSpotlightImporter.mdimporter
Microsoft Entourage.mdimporter
Microsoft Office.mdimporter
Wolfram Notebook.mdimporter
iMovie.mdimporter
iWeb.mdimporter
iWork.mdimporter
/Library/StartupItems:
Qmaster
Type Agent
/etc/mach_init.d:
/etc/mach_init_per_login_session.d:
/etc/mach_init_per_user.d:
Library/Address Book Plug-Ins:
SkypeABDialer.bundle
SkypeABSMS.bundle
Library/Fonts:
Arial
Brush Script
Times New Roman
Verdana
Wingdings
Wingdings 2
Wingdings 3
Library/Input Methods:
Sogou
Library/InputManagers:
Smart Crash Reports
Library/Internet Plug-Ins:
Unity Player.plugin
fbplugin_1_0_3.plugin
Library/Keyboard Layouts:
Library/LaunchAgents:
com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist
com.apple.AddressBook.ScheduledSync.ABExchangeSource.55AD2610-53DA-441F-86DD-9BC EDF133030.plist
com.apple.AddressBook.ScheduledSync.ABExchangeSource.B46D319B-8630-408F-8F33-F72 F701E564E.plist
com.apple.AddressBook.ScheduledSync.PHXCardDAVSource.4BDB54F2-C8DA-4A75-8BC9-3CE 5B51BC731.plist
com.apple.FolderActions.enabled.plist
com.apple.FolderActions.folders.plist
com.google.GoogleContactSyncAgent.plist
com.google.keystone.agent.plist
com.iLike.Agent.plist
com.zeobit.MacKeeper.Helper
Library/PreferencePanes:
.QS22ZC1BXCH3Y
novamedia_iSyncPlugins.prefPane
Library/ScriptingAdditions:
24U Appearance OSAX.osax
Library/Services:
OmniOutliner Professional.service
Step 5
2012-03-28 23:35:44.609 osascript[387:707] Error loading /Users/TaylorJames/Library/ScriptingAdditions/24U Appearance OSAX.osax/Contents/MacOS/24U Appearance OSAX: dlopen(/Users/TaylorJames/Library/ScriptingAdditions/24U Appearance OSAX.osax/Contents/MacOS/24U Appearance OSAX, 262): no suitable image found.  Did find:
            /Users/TaylorJames/Library/ScriptingAdditions/24U Appearance OSAX.osax/Contents/MacOS/24U Appearance OSAX: no matching architecture in universal wrapper
osascript: OpenScripting.framework - scripting addition "/Users/TaylorJames/Library/ScriptingAdditions/24U Appearance OSAX.osax" declares no loadable handlers.
System Events, Aurora Wakeup Helper, SpeechSynthesisServer, Dropbox