In short, the firefox model is "We provide a base browser, 3rd party extensions provide 'extra' features".
That was back in the firebird/firefox 0.x/1.x days, since then the firefox team has added some non-base features, but the program still relies heavily on 3rd party extensions.
This is different from IE or Opera, while it is possible to run extensions, it's not as common or 'necessary'.
From personal experience, I know the 'firefox model' doesn't exactly help with the speed, stability, and overall security of the browser.
This is about malicious intent (malware), but I would bet there are more than a few extensions with (unintentional) security flaws in them ...
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UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things.
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