YESS!
In the rush of getting this done, I did use Mark's files (jemplode boot logo looked like the one I was using) and unchecked the "use HiJack when possible", and now it is happily downloading my entire collection to my server HDD. So, one of the two remedies (or both) did work.

Thank you so much!

For the records, the reason why I am in a hurry is that next weekend I'll be traveling and I just bought my first iPod from the Apple store (yes, I gave up and got one). I'd like to load it up before I leave, and since I have 80GB of MP3s to download, it will take it at least two days... Oh well, I guess I'll wait.

Now, I am realizing Jemplode most likely will download the same MP3 file more than once if it happens to be in more than one Empeg playlist. Is it the case?

Also, I did write ID3 v2 tags in all my encoded MP3s as acurately as possible. However, assuming I left out some file, would it make sense to tell Jemplode to retag them all while downloading? Definitely the empeg database and tagging ssystem is the most updated and accurate I have...