Firewire is not any different than crappy USB! See discussion about Timy USB.

Today I was doing photofinish for a Crit race and with 2 laps to go, the firewire cable came unplugged! The computer did not seem to care, but the program just sat there like nothing happened, including NOT capturing any pictures! Rebooted the program, restarted another race and still no capture. I had to restart the computer (Win XP) before I could get the photocamera to come alive via firewire! (This took about 7 minutes to restart and get it up running again.) Lesson learned.....DON'T touch anything and secure EVERYTHING. Just wish the Firewire has those cool screws like serial 9 pin connectors!