1. That may well be down to some servers being either very busy, slow or image intensive, each element is also being scanned by the web shield provider to try and stop infection reaching your computer, that will also have an overhead. You could try with the web shield terminated and see if that speeds things up.
However, your Processor is a little under powered and anything you can do to reduce the CPU load is likely to help, ensure that you only have programs running that are essential (not just desirable), they can be opened and closed as required.
2. Again a new element (in 4.6.623) to the Internet Mail provider is to scan NNTP (news group) messages, this only done when the message is opened, not when you check the headers, if you are using OE for news groups and you have the preview pane open then as you preview a pessage it will be opened and scanned. See image for settings.
Being without a firewall is leaving you vulnerable but I have no suggestions for a firewall that is light on system resources, but there have been a number of threads that have discussed firewalls.
3. I'm sorry I don't understand the question, I don't see any folder next to my name or yours. where is this, profile, forum thread, a post you have made, where? Better still a picture.
I'm sorry to report that your processor is hampering your experience.