Yes, yes, yes...I can show this to my brother and he can stop complaining about the iPod I baught him some months back.
It clitches, it pops, it jumps. I reckon its the later iTunes. I tell you why, I have iTunes installed on 5 different PCs and laptops between work and home (I am part of Sonneteer, in case you wondered why!) and my personal laptop still gracres iTunes 4 as I refuse to upgrade due to the fact that later iTunes sound pretty poor in comparison. Real player 10 is the only thing that has got close to date.
My experiences with iTunes 7+ has been awful and it skips like mad. One particular time was while demonstrating some new product at a show and it didnt fail to skip at the start of every CD played. Also ripping some of my tunes to AAC or WAV(as I prefer) often leads to glitching in the songs on play back as if they are a scratched CD. Its also always at teh same spot in the song so its more likely to do with the ripping process.
I am sure that Apple are filled with good intent in developing their software further, but a few bugs have clearly crept in. It's just a shame that sound quality has also suffered along the way.