You could try using LameBrain. I've done thousands of songs with it and it is more flexible in terms of filenaming and location etc than iTunes, although maybe not as 'accurate' as EAC (just a guess).

As for the genreal comments about iTunes, I can't see how anyone cannot agree it's the best music organiser available. I've tried all sorts on my Mac, WinXP and Linux machines and quite frankly they ALL SUCK. iTunes is way better, hands down.

It cannot (by default) do Lame encoding, but there's ways around that and it's organisational abilities are unsurpassed. Not perfect by any means, but nothing else comes close.

Forget (J)emp(plode/tool). In my experience they all have MAJOR problems that iTunes simply doesn't have. What we now need is the iTunes to empeg plugin so iTunes is the front end for the empeg, as for an iPod. That would be GREAT.