I will also note that I think ext3 doesn't usually have full journalling enabled by default, it's somehow not a full-fledged journalled FS, despite what its ads say.
2.
I am probably not expert enough to actually have a qualified opinion about which FS is the best, but I can attest that startups after improper shutdowns are very fast with ReiserFS . I think that would be true with any journalled filesystem.
3.
:If its a windows formatted drive ( FAT / NTFS ) create an ext3 journalled filesystem on it and then fill it with data and empty it again . ext3 is a b * stard for recovering data from when you haven't done anything drastic.