ITunes 10.5.3, Unable to Load Class Data from Sync Services, Crashes Repeatedly

Question

Ever since iTunes 10.5.3 on my Windows 7 x64 box, I've been having serious problems keeping iTunes running:
1)  Any time I connect my iPhone or iPad, or any time they attempt to sync over WiFi, I get the 'Unable to load class data from sync services' error.  It's worth mention that the iPhone or iPad do actually then proceed to sync correctly, and all media / data is synchronized successfully, as far as I've been able to tell.  I've reset sync history, restored the iPhone and iPad, manually moved the SyncServices directory, set both the iPhone and iPad up as new, completely uninstalled iTunes and the mobile device software, re-installed, and *nothing* I do fixes this issue or even seems to impact it.  Uninstalling iTunes 10.5.3 and reinstalling iTunes 10.5.2 resolves this error.
2)  iTunes 10.5.3 has serious crashing problems on my machine, though I've searched through forums and found a lot of other people with the problem.  In my case, sporadically as iTunes access the iTunes store (for example, I can always make it happen by subscribing to the Diggnation podcast and telling it to refresh the podcast), I get a full application crash which generates the following event in the event log:
Faulting application name: iTunes.exe, version: 10.5.3.3, time stamp: 0x4f14cc3d
Faulting module name: KERNELBASE.dll, version: 6.1.7601.17651, time stamp: 0x4e211319
Exception code: 0x80000003
Fault offset: 0x0001280c
Faulting process id: 0x564
Faulting application start time: 0x01cce78789dc009a
Faulting application path: D:\Program Files (x86)\iTunes\iTunes.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\syswow64\KERNELBASE.dll
Report Id: ecc77400-537a-11e1-b809-00248c196007
Again, uninstalling iTunes 10.5.3 and re-installing iTunes 10.5.2 fixes this issue as well, but I really shouldn't have to do that.  Is there any actual solution to these problems other than dowgrading to an older version?
Yes, I'm running current malware protection (and my system is clean) and yes, I've already checked any other obvious culprits to make sure I don't just have a corrupt library or file somewhere that's causing it.  My Windows 7 install is completely up to date from a Windows Update perspective and also from a driver perspective (even including the motherboard and chipset drivers).  I made sure to do a system file integrity check (sfc /scannow) and it confirmed my install of Windows isn't suspect, but beyond all that I was able to reproduce these failures on a completely separate machine running Windows 7 x64, without any of my media library or data on it -- iTunes 10.5.3 just seems to be bad news on Windows 7 x64 for me, even though I know there are definitely people are using it successfully.  I don't get any other application crashes for any other applications, and I've never had an issue like this with any previous version of iTunes...
Last but not least, in case it matters, I'm running iOS 5.0.1 on both the iPhone4 and the iPad2.  The iPhone4 is the GSM AT&T model and the iPad2 is the CDMA Verizon model.

Answer 1

OK, I've given up.  Uninstalled iTunes 10.5.3 permanently.  It's a shame, 10.5.2 works perfectly but 10.5.3 is a complete and total cluster for me.
Anyone with the same problems who hasn't done this already, just uninstall iTunes and the Apple Mobile Device Service in your Add/Remove Programs, then re-install iTunes 10.5.2.  You won't lose your library or any settings or apps, it will just go back to working again.
I wish Apple would acknowledge this so that I'd at least know it would be fixed in the future.