well, that's quite a surprise indeed. And I can only concur with your conclusions.
I'm currently listening to CBR 320 with a CLASS 2 2GB SD card and it plays very nicely and without any interruptions on P2.
Trying to figure out how to flash the VS1053, since a new patch has been released on http://www.vlsi.fi/e...0xxpatches.html and should be capable of playing FLAC see if that brings any hearable differences. The VS1063 does play FLAC by default but has no MIDI though. Sparkfun has a new bob for the vs1063
https://www.sparkfun.../products/11684
... in case the patches breaks the vs1053b