I really like the description of this thread since I can whine without feeling guilty.
I have tried avidemux many, many times, and have always had trouble, usually with the sound.
Yet my 'demands' are really quite trivial. I want to trim the beginning and end of films recorded off my television (for those readers in France, from a "freebox"). I don't want to transcode it, I don't want to change codecs, I don't want to fix the frazzle, I don't want to to change the sampling rate, I just want to trim it.
I have tried avidemux under Windows XP (I think) and 7 (most recently today), and FreeBSD. Usually, the sound lost synchronization with the picture. Today, under Windows 7, I lost all sound and a film 1:32:00 long ended up as 45:00 without the sound.
I sort of (sic) suppose avidemux works for most people, otherwise the software wouldn't exist, and this forum wouldn't exist. I do understand that I am doing something wrong. However there is a certain virtue to software that is easy to use when the requested task is simple and the user is inexperienced...