Need help setting up a nice theme and compiz problemz

[Istrebitel]

Greetings.

I followed tutorials from here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFqj2hS_0iQ to set up my compiz effects (like burn and beam up) and i encountered several problems:

1) I dont quite understand. What is compiz and what is metacity. From what ive read on wiki they are mutally exclusive, i mean either one decorates your windows or another. But it seems that if you enable extras and download compizconfig settings manager, you dont actually replace your metacity with comiz, they coexist? Help me clear that up anyone who understands

2) I want to have a better theme than that of default gnome one. Should i look for gnome themes or compiz themes?

3) I tried to set up compiz as my default manager doing this http://www.jejik.com/articles/2008/1...mpiz_in_gnome/
doesnt seem to work. I rebooted and i still have metacity (because in appearence i have metacity themes and i cant install compiz themes, it says "package is not a theme".
(i tried to dl theme for compiz from gnome-looks)
What am i doing wrong?

4) I enabled compiz beam up effect for "open" and "close". Now sometimes if i scroll through dropdown menus too fast, they dont display. I mean if i press Applications, then move my mouse to Places and back very fast, i wont have any menu displayed, but Applications menu is there. if i move my mouse down entries in the menu start to appear as soon as i hover over them. It happens even with other effects for open and close.
Does someone know how to fix this up? Do i need to provide a screenshot?

5) Burn animation (i have set it on miniimize) lags for me. I have a very fast graphics card (GTX 280) and still, if i work for a bit in one window, the Burn animation starts to terribly lag when i decide to pop another. Whats fun is that i tried to lower particle count, twice (1000>500) and it has visually no effect! If i keep opening and closing windows, it WONT lag. If i let window be active for some time, when i try to switch it will lag for first 2-3 times it is displayed (burn animation of fire). After that it works seamlessly and without any delay. But if i let that window stick in focus - after some minute its back again. Must have something to do with precaching or RAM usage? Can that be fixed? (so it doesnt lag always, not only after 3 times of doing one window back -forth!)