donsprintr: It's their flash programming ...
Yes and in conjunction with the way flash prioritizes its work. For more info on how flash prioritizes work see my post from 2011.
From previous discussions with infinito his computer is uber-optimized and powerful, so that can't be a cause. (He is running 0% CPU usage after all. Maybe 0.4% actually no program is totally free)
I know there is an internal Flash task called "Garbage Collection" that is not under WGT's code control. Not much info out there on what it does other than it releases un-used memory for one thing. It runs periodically in Flash. So, assuming the stutters seen are few and far between it might be pushing out the rendering(drawing on the screen) of the meter to the next time slot. That would appear to us as a slight stutter.
I'm ruling out an interruption of the meter to update the friends list as infinito has zero on his list!