I made some ringtones and loaded them onto my phone ... they show up in the menu, and they play entirely in the player, but once you set them as the ringtone, when the phone rings, they only play for like 2 seconds and then loop back to the beginning ... is this a setting or something that can be changed ?

HELP?!?!

Read the last section of this FAQ:
How to Convert Ringtones - BlackBerryFAQ

and then set your ringtone in your Profile notifications to ring like one time, not 2 or 3, according to how long your ringtone is.