Anyway, it seems to me like the id3v2 tags grip passes to lame have their fields cropped to id3v1 sizes. I.E. a long song name will still be cut down even in the id3v2 field. Is this true?

What version of lame? The one I use (3.70, the latest stable version) only deals with id3v1 tags. I suggest you add tags afterwards using (a script which uses) the tools out of the latest id3lib.

Does grip use cdparanoia?

No way to normalize the song AFAIK

Not AFAIK either. Were you using AudioCatalyst under Windows? If you can put up with a Windows solution, Exact Audio Copy (www.exactaudiocopy.de) will drive the Windows version of lame, and is probably the best route to high-quality MP3s under Windows. It'll normalise, too.

sulaco.org, the home of lame, doesn't carry a Windows binary, but plenty of other sites do: http://www.mp3dev.org/mp3/links.html#binaries

Peter