I think the pendulum simply swung the other way with this last release.

In which case, I would guess that this all falls into the 'nevermind' bucket.

Could the fast forward/rewind 'dodgy'-ness have something to do with a VBR mp3? I vaguely recall that there was an issue with fast forwarding through a VBR mp3, but it's been a long time since that was mentioned. I assumed that issue (if it was an issue) had been resolved, but there in lies the problem ... 'assume'.