Help needed with IIe card!

[c.nebel@apple.com (Chris Nebel)]

OK, my venerable Apple II died not too long ago (right when I was about to
finish Ultima 4, too!), so I got myself a Mac LC II with a IIe card. 
Works basically ok; I'm copying my 5.25" disks over onto the hard drive --
slow, but worthwhile.  However, a few problems I'm having:

- How can I set up the system so it will automatically boot off the hard
drive?  I made a ProDOS partition and put PRODOS and BASIC.SYSTEM on it,
but when I hit the "IIe Startup" program, it refuses to boot off the HD! 
If I have a boot floppy, it can see the HD just fine, so it's not totally
unaware of it.  I did discover that I can boot off the HD by opening the
BASIC.SYSTEM file, but I'd rather have just one way to start up the IIe
system.

- Hi-res graphics are rather slow -- in fact, in some cases they're about
five times slower than a real Apple II, which I find kind of shocking. 
Changing the "processor speed" doesn't help; it's something about the way
it's emulating the video hardware.  Is there any way to improve
performance?

- Hi-res graphics also tend to look wrong -- I think.  White objects tend
to pick up a colored fringe, which shouldn't be possible.  Yes, I know
hi-res was designed for NTSC, and was never really intended to work on a
computer monitor, but I would have thought they could emulate it
correctly.  What's the deal?

- Is there a version of the IIe software that doesn't require that the
system be running in 24-bit mode?  Right now, I have to keep two copies of
the Mac OS around to boot from, because 7.6 and newer won't let you switch
down from 32-bit.

- I'm considering getting set up with a software-only emulator.  However,
I have a number of floppies that aren't copyable to ProDOS.  I've heard of
making 5.25" disk "images", but how can I make my own?  I would think I've
got all the necessary hardware at this point (Mac, IIe card, and a Disk
II).

Thanks for your help,

-Chris
c.nebel@apple.com