1. On the contrary, I am able to run it as user from the command-line. It will not start as user from the desktop. However, when I attempt to make and save the change I get the following error: "Uh-oh. Error while opening/writing Flash plugin binary. I hope I didn't break it. Fear not, even if I did, I made a backup to ..., just copy it back to ... as root. the UI is dark.

2. If I run it as root from the command-line, I get a dark UI as before and am I able to make and save the change without error.

My test has been to see if I can watch a video from hulu.com. I've tried the following:
linux, 10,1,53,0
android, 10,1,61 (froyo)
linux 10,0.45

and none of them allow me to watch a video from hulu.com. The player loads for a while then displays the message "Sorry, we are unable to load the player...."

I'll try something less aggressive to test.

UPDATE: Ok, I am able watch facebook videos in microb, no luck in firefox 1.1. In firefox 1.1, the play button is never rendered and the area for the video to be displayed is just black.