Well I think that was pretty smooth and not to buggy. The sound was ok as well as the video even with 8 participant (see below). The webcam quality is I think very important. I had a "creative webcam live Pro" (640x480 VGA CMOS sensor) and Louis I think a "Logitech QuickCam® Pro 4000" (640x480 VGA CCD sensor). What were your models ?
Is there any tool to record the conference for later viewing?
I use a DV camera (panasonic GS22) as a webcam and discovered after the gather in the vskype forums that DV-camera's aren't supported (yet), only USB camera's. So that's why you were all saved from seeing me 
I used an old TrendNet TV-PC301 USB model