Im sure you already know this but if you dont, working with lighting disabled is quite important, performance wise, this might fix your lag problem, not that it did for me.

I always move bone by bone but it still always lags lol, only with fingers that is.

All I do it click on the lock icon to unlock it, this does not effect anything at all, if you have a hand that is locked to the wrench and you animate everything, then unlock it, all the animation data will remain untouched. So then you can animate the drop.

Same thing happends to me, happends to almost everyone I think, you learn to deal with it after some time :/

No problemo :)

I really enjoyed working on this video, ow and please watch :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igcHeioAAy8

When you cut a new shot, it is very important you have it selected (it will turn yellow), this will then give you the required access to animate any models in that shot.

Sounds like a cool idea

No

Just an idea I had and thought it would be cool
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC2f1A3bDJY