Just as a comment on progress bars: as a user, don't you get irritated by progress bars that zap along to 98% at lightning speed, and then get stuck there for about 5 mins? Or even the other ones, that linger around 3% creeping up at 0.03% per min for about 10 min, until you finally get bored, and then zap up to 100% in two big jumps?
It seems to me that there's a case for not writing progress bars, the way some people's work....