I don't need or want a perfectly smooth progress bar.  I just want a moderately decent indicator of progress.  All I'm asking is that basic progress bar setups compensate to some extent for very large or small sections of the process so that I don't see the bar stall at 60% for an hour, have to freak out that my computer might be broken, then suddenly the other 40% takes like a minute.  I just want some sort of indicator to reassure me that things are still happening.