Second-long freezes... could be ReSharper, could be a different plug-in or a VCS integration interfering with ReSharper. Unfortunately you got rid of it so I guess we'll never know for sure )
They said when they got rid of it the freezes disappeared. So I guess we do know. I too have experienced period freezing with ReShaper so none of this really surprises me to read (in particular if you have a HDD).