And it would also be very cool if my toaster also opened cans, chopped up food, cooked it, and washed my dishes afterwards... But I can't imagine what that toaster would look like!

I say let jEmpeg concentrate on syncing MP3's with your Empeg, and leave the CD ripping/encoding tasks to the programs like EAC and LAME that do those well. EAC has been under development for years, and it's widely considered the best... Why try to replicate what they've done? I think Mike's time is better spent on improving jEmplode's interface, fine-tuning ID3/tagging issues, etc rather than duplicating what other programs already do very well.