Everything is definitely setup right, and my system is more than enough to handle VBA. The problem seems to be in a possible software conflict or something. I am starting to doubt it is VBA at fault at all, but I have no way to diagnose it thoroughly just yet.
No$GBA is good, and I'd concider it, but it isn't really geared toward the gamer. I have used it before and I REALLY like a lot of things about it. I don't think it would work with my media center in particular though. I am running a Snapstream Beyond Media TV box on Windows XP. It worked perfectly for most video playback and emulator functions up until VBA started to mysteriously run funky. I just thought I'd see if anyone else has come across such a problem. VBA ran fine for months prior, so this concerns. I know the system(s) are virus and spyware free (I'm not one of those AVG users who likes to PRETEND they have decent virus protection lol sorry folks, it's the truth).
Oh well. I'll keep trying. I'm sure it's something not so obvious that I missed. Some backround function, or the remote software, or something else that may be stealing priority and/or resources...