ITunes won't sync (after "upgrading" to Lion because my four year old macBook can't use Mtn. Lion) With a little ranting sprinkled in.

Question

I hope someone out there has the expertise to tell me what I am doing wrong. I expect a learning curve from a new Mac operating system, but I don't expect weeks of problem solving and glitches. Lion...well, they won't let me use that word. 
Since I "upgraded" to Lion, when I hit "sync" in iTunes on the computer, I get one of three things:  1. Nothing happens, or:  2. A message appears that there is not sufficient room on the Nano for the changes, which is not true, or:  3. It syncs down to next to nothing on the Nano and I have to hit revert.
Sometimes I'm confronted with a screen that wants me to check or uncheck each and every album (but not songs) that I want synced. I have already kept up to date a more specific and complete list of the same sort elsewhere in iTunes: the "Music" list in my itunes "Library." Today I unchecked some songs and checked some others expecting to easily have the corresponding changes made on my iPod, as I have for years.  This is the list that I have refined over the years based on new music acquired, my changing tastes, and room left on the iPod.  Am I really expected to duplicate this process on another list only to end up with no options for individual songs I do, or do not, want synced? What is the purpose of this exercise?
I finally got it to upgrade to iTunes 10.6.3.  I was repeatedly getting a message in iTunes that there was an upgrade available. I would hit upgrade within that mesage in iTunes.  It would go through the process of checking for new software and then tell me my software was up to date. (I was running iTunes 10.6 (40).) Software update also told me my software was up to date. I had to go to the Apple site to find and download and install iTunes 10.6.3. The change made no difference to the above problem. I'm not used to screw-ups like this from Apple.
I can't think of a single change in Lion that I like. Not one. I hate the new calendar. I hate the new Safari, and I hate the new Mail. I hate the combination of Google search and the address bar.  I hate the way hiting a hot link in Mail opens a new tab in Safari instead of a new window. And the number of hassles and fixes and problems to be solved in the move from Snow Leopard to Lion has been like nothing I have experienced before on a Mac.
An iMac and a laptop are not iOS devices. And iPads and iPhones are not laptops or desktops. To try to merge the operating systems is a major error in my opinion. Thanks for putting up with my rant. I never expected to be so frustrated by a Mac "upgrade."  And I've been using Macs a log time. Any advise would be apreaciated.
"Shinwell Johnson"

Answer 1

In lieu of relaxing on Sunday, I've been working on this. 
I tried launching Thunderbird (TB) in TB's "Safe Mode".  This launches TB like it's being used for the first time - and it didn't crash, which got me hopeful.
So I deleted the TB profile folder and the TB preference file from the ~/Library folder.  Then I manually copied them over from my old Mac to my new Mac - figuring that maybe something got damaged by Migration Assistant.  After I installed all of the TB files and folders into the right places in my ~/Library folder, I rebooted the Mac (just to be safe) and tried to launch TB - and it crashed upon launching, with essentially the same crash log as shown above.
So it looks like there is something in my TB Profile that Lion doesn't like (but that Snow Leopard was fine with). 
Any suggestions for how to find and fix/remove the offending item?  Is there something I could search for in the crash log that would point me to the offending item?