I'm going to start offf by saying you should not be travelling fast enought on any pulbic road to get into 4th gear...

Now to the questions....

A. That is not normal, a fluhs could help, but changing the fluid and filter altogether would be more beneficial

B. It is "okay" but it does more harm than good. With O/D on you get better gass milage but sacrafice a bit of acceleration. With the O/D off, you lose out on gas mileage but accelerate quicker by a slight margin, barely anything. You also cause excess heat with the O/D off when driving over 40mph. and get a fancy little "O/D OFF" light in you're gauge cluster... In short, don't drive with the O/D off.

C. That is also not normal, whomever told you so is a mistaken or a BLATENT LIAR! Mine never slipped going up a hill until it blew up. Sounds like your tourqe converter is taking a dook. Have AutoZone/Adanced Auto pull some codes for you, they do it free.

And why the fornicate do i have -2 karma?

Thanks for the Advice TheTuna
  O.D. has now been turned on as of tomm morning  lol

 the guy who said about his Sebring 'skipping 3rd gear'  I can relate to that.
    Mine seems like it does the same thing.

  but I just thought about another question...  ^_^
     
  TheStory:  One day i was driving  and the battery light came on ..  it was pretty dark and i turned on my high beams   
  the engine went haywire     it red-lined rev'd   the car jolted  and my cd player shut off.
     Things seemed to kept goin down hill   
   The next thing i new  my car wouldnt start right   
  Me and My dad opened the hood and noticed corosion(sp?)   all over the terminals
 so we cleaned them up  and wow  it started
      He then told me that my ground wires were bad.
    so after all this I have to ask this.
   
  --->   Can A bad Ground have anything to do with the Transmission?
 
   fyi.  -->   I found out that the girl who owned this car traded it in for a celica
                I talked with her b/f and he said they believed he thought the tranny was going out.
                 He and her both drive like nut cases  they beat on their celica.. such a waste of a decent car i think. 
               I know nothing of the previous service done to this Avenger other then a "software upgrade" 
               which I found and read under the hood by the headlight
 

I would put forward that  your  shift character can change and be different due to temp change
alone as thick cold fluid can have a different apply than hot fluid...It may also be different
due to you can have converter lk up in 3  and stay lk up mode during 4 th
shift and this would be different with a non lok up shift into 4th. A slippage between
shifts would not be normal however you should  notice a quick jump of the tack
needle if this is happening  and hear a engine flare , if this happened too often you would
get a gear ratio error and go into limp mode being 2 gear... As far as d to od selection
on normal driveing I highly suggest in town to drop into d selction because you can
get od at 40 mph in some vechicle and then it is constantly shifting back and fourth
along with the converter, however you wont notice gas milage difference in town
but on the high way you would,, As far as the tranny- running hotter in D I doubt,, the
main heat source for a transmission is the torque converter,, thats why most standards
dont have coolers,, the bearing s make some heat but  since the lk up converter came to the scene transmission run much
cooler on the highway.. I feel with the extra rpms d selection creates, it pumps better\
lube oil volume, cooling more oil... and in D you are turning 1 to 1 , in this your not
loading the taper bearings near as bad nor the torring bearing makeing this a much
stronger gear and more durable..OD is 1 in and 1. whatever out ,,, you will burn more
fuel and engine may run a bit hotter but most manafactures recomend pulling selection
into D for towing, I would say its more likly the transmission would run a bit
cooler in reguards to produceing its own heat but it may get more radiant heat
off the engine block and keep it at the same temp.. You should put a trans temp
guage on a let us know the results...Roger Reynolds,, Owner of hannibal transmission
and roadrage quick change gears...

I have to disagree with you on this one. I've beaten quite a few of "sporty" cars with my 97 Avenger 5-speed. I've beaten a 99 Grand Am SE, 94 ?Brettea? Z26, Malibu, and countless Civics, I've been able to keep up with a 3.8 V6 Camaero. And a god damn Saturn that won't leave me alone. And others I don't remember. So, I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with you. This is coming from a 17 year old kid with a 1997 Dodge Avenger that get a 0-60 time in the low 8s

I haven't raced a Celica yet, but from what my friends say (one has a 99 S10 and another has a 99 Grand Am SE (both of which I can beat no problem)) I wouldn't have much problem beating them. Sebrings are heavier than the Avengers. From what one of my friends had said, my car can't be stock, so I don't know. I beleive it is stock. So I don't know until I beat one 

Actually, no mods as far as i know. The only mod that i have down is modify the stock air box. I cut some BIG holes before the filter to allow more airflow. Other than that, none. I'll post some pics tonight hopefully. If you would like, add me to yahoo messenger or msn messenger: CivicKiller2006@yahoo.com, BeyBlade2006@hotmail.com (sorry about the msn one. its like 4 years old, just too damn lazy to get a new one.)

our cars are as slow as my grandmoms jazzy wheel chair.

And on the note of 4th gear most roads I drive on around me at 45MPH plus. im always in 4th after about 45 unless im getting on it to merge from an on ramp onto the highways.