Ok, enough time has elapsed since replacing the external hard drive. No more freezes, hangs or other mishaps with Windows Explorer. Strange that the drive, which generally did work, would evidently cause so much of a problem. So I will have to eat my words of condemnation; Windows 7 does NOT suck.
Maybe I was hasty; maybe it was the old Seagate FreeAgent external hard drive causing the problems with hangups or freezes on Windows 7. Just replaced it yesterday, so it is too soon to tell. If I have no further problems over the next several days, I will revise my rant on Win 7. No [...]