The Connection class that i talked about in the last port really cleared the things up, now the network code is almost unbreakable - i'm even considering going back to SDL_net (easier to build, and debian packages) - i think it's just a question of sending the packets again and again, until it is succesful - that's what i do in Netxx.
I've implemented all sorts of nice new classes now, ScriptBase to manage scipts, Inventory to manage an object's inventory, Rules to have the rules of the world being simulated defined in one place and Type such that we can define scripts that work for all objects of the same type.
There is still some synchronization issues to be solved, but ain't that just what network code is all about - i'm just happy it's not crashing every five seconds - much easier to fix code that actually run and just have runtime issues rather than code that crashes randomly.