Dano, you should do a lot more reading around here before starting a couple of huge posts basically just repeating what's already been said. This topic (both if you prefer) has already been discussed to death. In fact, in your rather lengthy rehash, you left out some pretty important and very specific details about the issues we're dealing with here.

It also doesn't sound like you've looked at the various gapless plugins for Winamp. At least it doesn't sound like you've investigated the one I've mentioned a few times. There's nothing "unsophisticated" about it.

Now, about taking into account "no gaps" - please, stop mentioning it from the viewpoint that this has not been addressed. It has.

If you want to be specific, what's needed now, in addition to a cross-fader, is something to automatically trim silence (to either combat inherent problems with frame alignment or padding inserted by your encoder/ripper). Something that I've mentioned before, Tony's mentioned before and a few other people have mentioned before. If you'd care to investigate the cross-fader I've mentioned, you'll find it also does automatic removal of silence. You can control the amount of overlap as well as eliminate overlap if you want.

For cross-fading purposes, you can take virtually any track and fade it into another one maintaining superb and seamless quality of transition. This usually employs the use of silence removal at the same time. I've keep some modest default settings and don't tend to ever turn them off. I've gone through a number of continuous tracks with very good results. Yeah, everyone that wants this feature should know that it's not simply for allowing the playing of mixed albums. Cross-fading, in fact being the opposite of what you claimed, is quite sophisticated (or should be implemented as such).

Now, though it would be nice, I'd hardly call a cross-fader or silence removal (to improve gaplessness or for any other reason) a very high priority compared to some other things that have been mentioned in other threads. I certainly don't think they should be addressed or looked at for 2.0 features.

Bruno