To avoid stalls and crashes of InDesign and Extensis Suitcase X1 you can use a little font cache cleaning application called FontNuke (google it). This guy saved me when we were stuck in the loop of endless IDCS2-3 shutdowns using the auto-activation plugin. Use this right after and at least once in awhile even if after you turn off the Extensis plugin. It searches out all of the font cache locations deletes the contents and reboots your computer.
We have not used the Auto-Activation Plugin for many months now and the Indesign stability issue has all but gone away completely. I spoke with our regional sales fellow from Extensis and by reading between the lines it SEEMS as though they will be releasing the Universal Type Server at WWDC. Let us hope that they finally resolved the auto-activation issue. Also for some incredibly tedious reading look into the Apple’s ATSServer (serves out font info to applications etc.) which Extensis says is at fault for the instability.
Also, if you use MS Office… Trash the “Do Fonts” devil spawn in the MS Office -> Office folder in your applications folder. You can make and archive out of it and toss the uncompressed original if you are worried. It just disables the automatic propagation of the cursed MS fonts to your fonts folder. This also was a blessing. Trying to reach deadlines and dealing with the above issues was Sisyphean task. What I wouldn’t have done for a few moments with the coders of the involved players.
We can only hope that the major players in this industry start working better together behind the scenes. If Apple, Adobe, Extensis, and Epson etc. had a quarterly BBQ together and actually just communicated about what challenges their users are experiencing we would all be able to actually do our jobs without wasting clients’ time, our collective money and precious years off of our lives from stress. This recent flap of “it wasn’t me” stances that the aforementioned companies have taken is shameful.