womandi-
About the photo upload, Google Chrome worked very well for me while I was having the speed issues - much better than FF, IE8 didn't work at all. You may give Chrome a try.
"I work on my laptop downstairs (wireless) and my PC upstairs (hard wired) and I have the same problems with Auctiva on both puters" - aren't they still both going through the same router though? May not hurt to pick up a new one for testing purposes just to make sure. You can get one for $20 and up, maybe even return it if it doesn't do the trick...
Yes, I agree the editor is horrible. Why they cram everyting into a tiny window 452 pixels wide with no word wrap or line breaks is beyond me. You can't use any external editors and paste it back either - what a pain.