Miro

It would be tremendously useful to be able to adjust playback speed. 0.5X, 1X, 1.5X, 2X

I want this feature so badly. I listen to 30+ podcasts and it would be much easier if I were able to do at 2x playback speed.  I propose implementing a full range of 0.4x -> 2.0x  so users can slowly acclimate themselves to the faster playback. There's an Opensource library called ScaleTempo which provides this functionality. http://scaletempo.sourceforge.net/0/  playback of audio and video at faster or slower speeds without changing pitch (i.e. no chipmunk effect).. 

Currently, my workaround is to use the VLC media player after the file is downloaded. This is cumbersome, indeed.

The VLC media player is open-source, so I believe getting it implemented shouldn't be that difficult.