Difference betweend Firmware and Driver?

 Hello,

 we try to understand why the driver for wl1271 is divided in three parts.

These are for bluetooth:

TIInit_7.2.31.bts

TIInit_7.6.15.bts

TIInit_10.6.15.bts

For wifi:

wl1271-nvs.bin

wl128x-fw-4-sr.bin

And finally the Kernel Objects:

wl12xx

wl12xx_sdio

gpio_en

1. Why is it necessary to load a firmware into the chip every time we start it up. Why not store it on the chip persistent.
2. What is the difference between these three

   TIInit_7.2.31.bts

   TIInit_7.6.15.bts

   TIInit_10.6.15.bts ?

3. Why doesn't include the kernel objects the firmware also?
4. Is it possible that a wl1271 chip comes without a base address (BD_ADDR) ?

 I hope for some clarification here, if we are completely misguided here please tell us.