so, Firefox 2 downloaded unbidden.
-I changed the theme to Winestripe so that icons look like Firefox 1.5
-I made a change at about:config so that tabs do not each have a close button and so that there is no minimum size for tabs & hence no scrolling (made a couple other recommended changes too re less visible workings)
-I created a userchrome.css file in my 'profile folder' specifying that there be no list tabs arrow at the end of the tab row

okay!