What was the minimum bit rate you set in MP3 iTunes settings.

I had it set to 128kbits, which is the same as lame uses for --alt-preset standard.

Another question, how do you import to MP3? do you import it direct from CD? or do you import first to WAV? How do you make backups ...

My MP3 collection is a mish-mash of older files from older computers (imported, variously, with grip, audiograbber, and eac, but all compressed with lame), as well as new ones imported using iTunes. Right now, I'm just letting iTunes do its default thing, which is compressing as it imports. I'm not explicitly worrying about backups because I copy the music from my home computer to two empeg's (one in the car, one in the stereo rack). In a worst case failure, I can just recover the files from an empeg.

when I use a program that uses lame or fraunhofer it takes like 10 min per song, ummm... why?

This depends on far too many things. For starters, there's a speed vs. quality tradeoff. If you run lame in CBR mode, it's much faster than VBR mode. Likewise, newer versions of lame are significantly faster than older versions. Ultimately, if you're using a program like EAC or grip, then it doesn't really matter. Lame runs in the background, but your rips run at full speed. So long as you've got enough disk space to hold the temporary raw CD data, you don't really care how slow your CPU is.