What, exactly, about the heat makes it a "huge" issue? MacBook Pros have failure rates on par, if not better, than the rest of the industry. You haven't really explained what you mean by that.
And every third party external hard drive I've ever used works fine. USB is for sissies, though.
Norton does suck balls, but I might just use this other program my cable service provider gives free as an internet security thing. It does its job and detects **** you don't want.
I don't care if Jesus himself told you to use Norton, it is crap. If you have to run windows use AOL's free antivirus program that is powered by Kaspersky [the best anti virus program out there].
It's also interesting to note how many people don't read all the post's before posting... We are keeping it rockin' almost 40 posts after he waived the white flag...