Re: Secret to creating smooth, clear text logos for websites
Fireworks actually is the right choice if you're doing designs for the web. It's export engine is far and away the best of the lot (when compared to Photoshop or Illustrator, mind you).
Make sure you type the text in FW on a transparent background. Don't rasterize it or otherwise convert it. When you save it, make sure you're exporting it (File -> Export or Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+R I believe) and not just doing a Save As... - the two are functionally quite different and produce different results.
Also, make sure you're using PNG-32 in FW. Photoshop shows it as a PNG-24 but the only difference is the presence of absence of an alpha channel. Any PNG using alphas (RGBA) is a 32 bit PNG.