Hi.
to improve performance, (Im not sure if this works on OS X) go into the memory C.P. and make the disk cache bigger. i found this stopped half of my iMac G3's freezes.
In apple menu C.P. , disable it from doin recent items.
and for basicly all aplications, make the memory usage bigger.
when using different themes on OS 9, at least double the memory for the appearance C.P.