So today i brought from Frys
"Belkin 1000Mbps Gigabit Powerline HD Starter Kit for High Definition Video Streaming" - hoping that I get to watch HD mythtv recordings on my mythfrontend without the annoying pauses.
Needless to say, it gave me pain already, it would freeze up on me. I had to unplug the receiving end a couple of times to get past the hiccup.
Before returning it, I chose to attempt a f/w update against the latest and greatest from their web-page. I found this detailed
instructions. When I run the thingy downloaded from the website, it seems like it downgraded my f/w version.
Before the "upgrade":

After the upgrade:

as you can see, i got downgraded to 2.0.9 from 2.2.0 although the svn branch got hiked to 25645 from 25122 -- looks like Belkin does not have much of a grip on cohesive version control.
Either way, for my own selfish sake, i hope this fixes the random hiccups i've been experiencing on these device.