Best as i can remember New Jersey was named as a tribute to their home state showing they were proud to be from Jersey.
Doc getting fired was the culmination of several things, but mostly because Jon had ideas about diversifying and doc didn't want him to, the pot thing happened in like 88 and had been settled btwn them long before. I think alot of it was that Jon felt that Doc no longer had the bands or his best interests at heart, that Doc had fallen into the "money" trap and they just weren't connecting anymore. Plus Jon is an admitted control freak and he felt he had lost control of what the band was doing and where they wanted to go.
The new record isn't coming until fall, September I believe.