Going SL to Leopard

My machine originally came with Leopard which I thought ran flawlessly but ever since I upgraded to SL, I've had a lot of little problems creep up. I don't know if they're update related or simply SL at fault but it takes a while to put to sleep, a good 1-2 minutes before my machine goes into full hibernation and if that wasn't bad enough, when I wake it up, I lose my optical drive which means if I want to use it, I'll have to reboot. Not a problem since I don't use it that often but I also lose the ability to open up Disk Utility because it hangs trying to access the ATA channel the optical drive resides on.

Found a neat little program called Sleep Please which solves the insomnia problem my machine seems to have as it knocks it out instantly but still have the optical issue.

Is anyone having such problems? These problems are related to my 3,1 Mac Pro but everything works fine on my MBP. So frustrating.


This is a fresh install:

 

The machine is out of warranty but I suspected that as well so I went out and bought a new DVD drive but the problem persists.

Other problems is apparent with display not waking. I would say 1/4 my display will not wake.

I recently caught one of Leo Laporte's show and he said he only runs SL on one of his machine with the rest still on Leopard because there are issues.

 

Lets see if anyone has a recommendation that doesn't require transportation of this beast. It's 1/3 my weight so I'm not looking forward to lugging it anywhere.