RE: Announcement: iTunes 7.4.2 is now available?

Question

Hi!
After a terrible blunder this morning, and not being able to remove ones remarks; one can only offer a 'Mea maxima culpa' and hope it is accepted.
Nevertheless, I wanted to understand why I ought to download this update.
I’ve spent a small fortune in music, audiobooks, TV shows, and movies from iTunes. As the message to update has a near threatening tone, to lose everything I currently own simply because iTunes 7.4.2 may not work on my computer is not a position I want to be in. It's difficult for me to 'Track answers" as I am dealing with end of life issues, but I'll try to track back when I can.
Be that as it may, I am going to repost my still unanswered questions from the thread: iTunes 7.3: What's new?
Hi!
I must say, all of this new technology sounds wonderful. However - oh yes, I forgot to say there is a 'However' - I don't have, or intend to buy a iPhone, or iPod now or in the foreseeable future.
In view of the fact that I am terminally ill with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) and in the final stages of cancer as well, I am unable to write, or correspond with anyone. Thus, I would have no reason to send photographs to anyone over an iPhone I don’t own. I don't mind sharing music or TV Shows, Podcasts, and so forth, with my caregiver, but that's as far as sharing goes in my home.
It is an odd situation you know, when one is in the final stages of life, family and friends seem to disappear rather quickly - that’s been my experience anyway. Oh what shall I do?
It remains for me to mention, there is not one aspect of iTunes I do not understand. The program is simplistic to the point of dullness. Believe me I have plenty of time on my hands to quickly learn such programs.
I must state, though, I'm not interested in High Definition anything. Any TV show I might download, I watch once or twice, and then I file it away on an external drive. Moreover, I was a studio engineer before I got ill, and I'm able to remaster any music download, disc, or album I want.
This brings me to another issue. As a Windows user, when I save music files to a CD-R, Windows turns that music file into an MPEG Layer 3 file, not a data file - though I can do that also. I then delete the useless MPEG-4 Audio Files, or store them on my external drive, especially since I take no pleasure in creating iMix’s. Therefore, I save every download from iTunes in one way or another.
Still, as my iTunes library is filled with MPEG Layer 3 files, nothing in my library would be replaced with high quality, DRM free files of any kind. Perhaps my MPEG-4 Audio audiobooks, and a few TV shows might be replaced, although I doubt it. Also, my music files have a much higher bit rate and sample rate than iTunes MPEG-4 Audio files. In fact, my audio files are 'lossless'. If they are not, I can make them so.
The music in my iTunes library is more important to me than any other files in it. Hence, as a consumer who does not own an iPhone, or iPod, I see no reason to download this update. If the program ran my wheelchair I might take a chance with it.
Be that as it may, I don’t understand why it is we think the latest iTunes program is 'always' the best. Indeed, I have found the opposite. That is, sometimes new doesn’t always mean better for everyone.
Therefore, 'What's New' gives me no reason to upgrade to iTunes 7.4.
Be well

Answer 1

Plain and simple, iTunes 7 is crap. I upgraded - may I should say downgraded with how it works - to 7.0.1 and it crashed as soon as I pressed the play button. Really giving a lot of thought to going back to 6.0.5.
jharkin and mpacific, I turned gapless playback off. It did lessen the number of crashes I have now. If you turn on crossfade playback only albums set for gapless playback will use the feature. Maybe you have already tried this...
Really what is the point to gapless playback? We already have "join CD tracks" so why do we need gapless playback? Hmm...maybe I'm missing something.
All this iTunes 7 crap really stinks. I feel like I'm stuck in a bad dream, dealing with Microsoft and can't wake up.
Intel iMac Mac OS X (10.4.7)