I've used Opera for quite a while now and have very few crashes. Have you tried the new Opera 8 that is just out? These old eyes love the magnify feature.
I bought 6 at the end of the cycle and they offered me (a paying cutomer) no discount for 7. I would think they would treat their non-adware customers better. I don't want adware, and I am not willing to pay full-freight for an upgrade when the last one crashed too much and was disagreeable with some web pages. I wish them well, but I'm okay with Firfox.