To World of Minecraft makers:
I would suggest that the server list come up automatically whether or not it could be retrieved.  That way on days the servers are slow instead of refreshing for a server list you could just type in the url of your usual server.  The list is an inconvenience at times if you wish to only World of Minecraft on one or two servers.  This might not solve minecraft's frequent problems but at least it takes a step out of the frustration. 

To anyone with java update issues:
To anyone losing the .jar file, follow these steps
1) add the line "xcopy "lib\minecraft.jar.bak" "lib\minecraft.jar" /Y /I" into the first line of run.bat....
2)rename "minecraft.jar" into "minecraft.jar.bak".  This creates a copy of the jar file before you run the program.  Will never have to redownload jar file again.
3)If the appellet issue continues, simply click on the run.bat file with internet connections OFF, then turn connections on before you log in.