I'm having the same problem as you with the avatars.  Seriously, you described my exact circumstances.  I would really like to find a solution to this.  If I find one I will post the info here, please do the same.  Unlike you, my avatars have never worked though.

I may have some insite on your missing tabs issue.

I experienced the same problem temporarily and I may know what is going on.  The tabs appear to be the last thing that is rendered by the browser.  For me, the reason they did not show up is because the browser was trying to render some content from an external source that was down at the time.  So instead of drawing the rest of the page and coming back to the external content later, it simply waited there for a minute or two until it timed out and then drew the rest of the page including the missing tabs.

Are you linking to any external urls, images, xml, or rss sources that may no longer be available?

Golgamesh

Any other suggestions?