beachycove, I know just the apps you're looking for.

Word Processor: Bean, one of the best FREE Mac WP in my mind. (Supports XML format, minus images)

Or, you could try out NeoOffice.

Light web browsing: Camino, Mozilla based browser with a Cocoa UI, lighter than Firefox.

Or you could stick with Safari.

... at least Safari (not sure about Firefox) runs the plugins as separate processes ...

Click to expand...

As of Firefox 3.6.4 (current is 3.6.10,) Firefox has the "out of process" plugins feature.