Now we're getting to the bottom of it: ATM. When Apple started shipping OS X (Public Beta, Cheetah...), Adobe decided they wouldn't create ATM and ATM Deluxe for Mac OS X. And this started a whole desaster. I guess Apple thought the problem would be solved by others filling the gap - and to a certain extent, it was. But for a long, long time, Apple didn't _have_ to care about font management, because there were a couple of really good tools for this. So all _they_ did was very simple font handling. Suddenly they noticed that things didn't work like they should and that designers were pi**d off by the way fonts did work (or how they didn't, actually) in OS X - which kept a lot of people in OS 9. So they created Font Book. I mean: It's not a bad thought to do it, the interface is not _that_ bad, but it's FAR from perfect font handling. (Crashing et al shouldn't happen, of course, anyway...)
I really hope Apple hires a couple of designers that look over the shoulders of those who're in charge for the next FontBook version. I hope they have at least 20 people working hard on this one. And the designers should slap the programmers whenever they simply don't get it.
... But I _guess_ Apple's still handling this as a stepchild. And I wouldn't wait for Adobe here, sadly.