To separate the stop & reload buttons, right-click on a toolbar and choose Customize, you can then drag and drop the stop or reload buttons and place them elsewhere. If you place them in the order "Reload-Stop" on the right hand edge of the location bar they will be combined again. For more details on customizing the toolbar see https://support.mozilla.com/kb/How+to+customize+the+toolbar

You can change the appearance of the buttons with a theme such as Firefox 3 theme for Firefox 4 - https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/firefox-3-theme-for-firefox

Thanks for the hint about that theme! Unfortunately, my browser crashed after i installed it, and after restarting FF all the drop-down menus were just transparent - without any menu items inside, so even turning that theme off was impossible. Had to revert to 3.6.16 again. But still it looked nicer than the default one.

What about that little tiny button which was showing the whole navigation history for the current tab? Is it gone for good, or there's some way to bring that functionality back?

You can get the drop down list by either right-clicking on the back/forward buttons, or holding down the left button until the list appears.

Thanks a lot. Both lightning fast and totally informative =).

Try this: How do I show or hide the Add-on Bar? If you don't have any add-ons that use the Add-on Bar, it won't be shown by default but you can easily show or hide it whenever you want.

   To show or hide the Add-on Bar, right-click on an empty section of the Tab Strip and check or uncheck it in the pop-up menu.
       You can also use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + /. 

Failing that-there is an app to bring back the status bar, of sorts -

https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/what-happened-status-bar#os=win&browser=fx4

Hope that helps, I find the app bar is enough.

Thanks for the help but I press customize and I see the bar I want with a how do tab, the bar I want (Reload button next to Stop button) and a bookmark line. I tried something and didn't work. So had to Restore Default. Saving the url so I can get back here. Any takers to make an easy procedure as I review all the above again. Thanks again everyone. ED: Yeah I read the help on the buttons again and the drag and drop solution is just too vague and no attention to the presentation to what is puzzle to behold. Hey I DO NOT see all those button choices. https://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/how-do-i-customize-toolbars? Where did they come from?