If you're one of the people unlucky enough to be on dialup or if you know someone who is, recommend it to them as well.  My friend (who can't get broadband in his area) and I have played 5 or 6 games via GameRanger now, and the LAN simulation seems to do better.  The game was actually playable for us even just connecting via the game, but the lag is slightly better simulating LAN, there's slightly less hitching, and so far we haven't had any disconnects at all for any reason, where we had a few during lag spikes before that.

Anyway, I highly recommend it.  Can't wait to see improvements to the game's internal infrastructure, and I have no doubt all will be well soon, but for the miscellaneous folks out there still having issues, GameRanger can help resolve some of them.  Too bad there are a lot of pirates around, but if you have friends you regularly game with, setting up a game is about as painless as you could want.  And if you love the game but happen to be on dialup, yes, the game is stable and playable over GR.