Wired Memory very high

A quick google search showed that when running in safe mode, it is common for OSX to allocate a bunch of wired memory. I didn't go too far down that rabbit hole, but there were several guesses as to why.

So anyway, that is not the real problem. The problem is you can only boot into safe mode. What is stopping you from booting normally?

From what you described it sounds like a video driver. Wired memory is memory dedicated to process running in kernel mode. Faulty hardware generally doesn't take more memory than needed. However, a bad driver can gobble up loads of memory.

Also, your initial problem sounds like a graphics driver. The iMac (to my knowledge) only has discrete graphics and no integrated graphics GPU to fall back on like an older MacBook Pro. So... when you go into safe mode, it falls back on a driver that is less sophisticated, but more stable than the one loaded with OS X at a different run level. The driver for highest GUI run level used stuff like Core Animation, 3D acceleration, etc...

How did this happen? I have no clue. I don't know how to reinstall an OSX driver for graphics, I've never had to. But either updating to 10.8, 10.9 or reinstalling 10.7 will probably fix your issues.

EDIT: I'm wondering if you might have malware, or other software hooking into the video driver for a remote display. Something like VNC hooks into the graphics driver, and needs to run in kernel mode (kernel mode, is Intel's Ring0 where the kernel of the operating system and drivers have exclusive access to memory.) to get the remote display. Just a though......