how rough are we talking about? like jerking from 1st to 2nd? >>>

Correct, a slight jerk when upshifting, and quite a jolt when downshifting. Honda had a sugar coated name for this (positive shifting?) or something alone those lines. It's the nature of the tranny. Some people don't like it, some do, others could care less. I have gotten used to it, though it never did bother me... I think it gives the car a sportier feel. One of the reasons a lot of us bought the Accord was because we didn't want a cloud cruiser. Back to the 98-02 trasnmission issue, my advice to people I guess would be to opt. for the 5 spd...Hondas are well known for their manual transmissions.

I believe they first started making the transmissions in the US during the 6th gen run (2000 I think?)>>>

They began using more domestic suppliers, however, from what I read on some of the other forums, this was not the cause for failure. The part at fault is a bearing of some sort that wears prematurely (or so this is the case with the V6) This part was issued by foreign suppliers. Apparently, the transmission defect was more wide spread among the V6 Accords (and Odyssey, Acura TL/CL, etc.) than the 4-cyl models (which use a different AT)