Really, thats rather odd, especially as when you have it unconfigured it feels like IE except faster and more secure.
I would give it a go with some good extensions they really make a difference, i use fasterfox, noscript, adblock, pdfdownload, flashgot and mouse gestures. And my firefox is a super slick speed demon that is intuitive mouse gestures are fabulous really good on forums like this, And no script really cut down the number of spyware infections by a staggering amount.
FF needs a bit of tweaking for it to be really good, some people dont realise it has things like extensions and skins because IE didnt, but if you spend half an hour to an hour tweaking it you can get it perfect to you. Thats why its so loved by so many its totally flexible.
I got the newsest version,gave it another chance and still though I had a look in most of the tweaks and still after all that Avant is my best browser,maybe u should give it a go specially version 8.02 The best one,all the follow ups aren't as good as 8.02