I've been using Skype, too, for the most part -- not only is it the only thing that works well with PCs from my Mac, it also seemed to handle a firewall much better than did iChat.

How is the downgraded Skype better than the official version? Incoming, or outgoing? I gather my outgoing image wasn't too bad, but the incoming video of my brother was pretty awful. I blamed his cheap webcam, could it be Skype trying to skimp on processing?