Flash update messed up FF Add-ons and the Open New Tab button.

Question

FF told me that I needed to update Flash, so I said OK. Whereupon all of my FF Add-ons disappeared. Seems that FF needed to check with the mother ship to find out if everything were compatible with this new Flash update--but the mother ship was not available (this has happened several times).
Why didn't FF check on the compatibility issues BEFORE getting the Flash update?!
I will remove Flash (did this in the past, and the lost functionalities were no big deal). I will also change the settings on FF so that the program won't do this again. (I periodically go see about FF updates myself and try to sit on FF while the updates are being done.)
BTW ... I had FF set to NO DOWNLOAD/UPDATE anything until/unless I have the OK. The past few weeks, I've gotten constant notes from FF telling me to get FF6.0. I was almost ready--but not quite ready--and yesterday FF updated itself. NO OK from me.
As I type this, I've finally gotten all of my FF Add-ons and other mods back. And it looks like my bookmark tabs are all squared-away again, too. (The AddNewTab button completely disappeared.)
So, this is no longer a question for you that could use an answer. Instead, I'd like you to pass my frustrations along to the development crew. I HATE the uncertainty/instability of my Firefox Add-ons and Stylish mods. (I'd rather just skip them.)
I understand that the Add-ons are not the work of Mozilla (not like the browser program itself, anyway) and that the job of getting everything to work together must be insanely difficult. So I'm not wanting to complain about the compatibility hassles here--I'm complaining about the need to watch FF carefully to make sure FF doesn't jump up and do something that I don't want. That and the fact that I have to remember that FF will change my system BEFORE checking to see if it's going to make a mess for me.
I only recently returned to Firefox and started using some of the Add-ons again. I love them. But I don't think I'll ever use more than 6 or so Add-ons because of the constant problems with updates like this mess today with Macropedia's Flash. The one thing I don't want in a browser is problems.
Thanks for your attention here ...
Jack

Answer 1

I'm sorry to hear that you have so many issues. What version of Firefox were you using before?
The double title bar issue has been identified as an issue with the Tax Mix Plus extension but it doesn't affect everyone, it's an interaction with something else (not exactly clear what, although Norton Toolbar was mentioned in one thread).
There is a new version available that you could try. If Firefox is stable enough to do it...
orange Firefox button (or Tools menu) > Add-ons > "gear" icon > Check for Updates
If your beta version won't update, you could try installing [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/tab-mix-plus/ from the add-ons site].
More generally, could I suggest disabling as many extensions as you can live without for 24 hours, and re-enable them gradually? This should help isolate interactions between them. As you know, you can do that here:
orange Firefox button (or Tools menu) > Add-ons > Extensions category
Finally, regarding your old session, if you haven't closed Firefox, you might find a sessionstore.bak file in your profile folder that contains your old session. To easily access that folder, try
Help > Troubleshooting Information > "Show Folder" button
Grab a copy of that file and save it somewhere outside the folder because it is overwritten when you close Firefox. Got to run, but if you find one with an appropriate date, someone can help you restore it.