i work often with huge images and i am surprised to see no difference from using the 32 or the 64 bit version..that is strange because i have 8GB ram and the 32bit may use only 2.

Well i did not make a exact comparison but i was expecting more evident differences in speed

about "possible solution" to recover gimp from crashes or freeze i was surprised you have success even once killing gimp from the task manager that never worked for me

what works often is
1) kill not gimp but script fu exe if running (very risky but sometimes works)
OR BETTER
2) suspend or switch off the computer:
first try to suspend/hibernate the computer often works
if not just switch off...a warning should pop out about programs still running,(you must be quick may be a flashing waning ) and then if you cancel (you do not switch off the PC) is possible recover gimp or at least save the image

I've never had an issue with Taskmanager killing GIMP PC. Doing so means losing a lot of work though so that's the bad part for me. I've tried the keyboard shortcuts to save my work when a freeze event occurs but only was successful saving my work once or twice doing this.

Maybe is more important how to avoid crashes :

WHEN YOU DON'T USE A TOOL,but filter or script MAKE SURE THAT THE ACTIVE TOOL IS THE MEASURE TOOL :
last gimp seems oversensitive to accidental clicks when filter or script are running, and the measure tool is one of the few harmless , in case of a accidental click the measure tool does nothing that may interfere with running processes

GIMP 2.7 crashed a bit too often for me, most of times i believe was for accidental clicks, (ie i was sure to have the focus on Firefox, instead i clicked on the active gimp windows ) or when rearranging windows or zoom while a slow filter was running

Now with the "Measure Tool" trick i had no more crashes even if i work often with huge images and very intensive filters