I agree that re-encoding is not always needed. However given that I have the CISC CPU time and HD space to recode I figured why not. In doing so I got: No studdering ever, lower OMAP CPU usage for cooler operation, lower OMAP CPU usage for longer battery life, slightly smaller file sizes.

I played around with a number of recode settings and getting down the file size even smaller is of course an option. However I really like things to look good.