I find V3 A3 far better at skipping through tracks without a glitch than any 2.x release. Of course, this could be because I am using an Mk2 and the there is not enough cache for the drives to ever spin-down

Agree on that (with a MkIIa). Could it be that the pre-cacheing algorithms changed because of the cross-fader? But OTOH it competely stops playback, and refuses to come back unless rebooted, on some tracks (mainly some audio books I didn't rip myself, but also some other tracks). All buttons are responsive, I can skip tracks, kill artist etc, but it won't resume playing - any track stays forever (as long as I've let it wait...) at 0:00.

I've yet to take a look at the tracks that trigger this to see if there's something in common to them and different from other tracks...

/Michael