I have had problems with Bourne Ultimatum on my Toshiba HD-A35 player. Check out this article regarding skipping problems on the HD-A20 after the latest firmware update:
http://ultimateavmag.com/hddiscplaye...hup/index.html
Even though this is an HD-DVD issue, it educated me on just how many factors come into play with just a "skipping or freezing" issue. I'm sure that similar factors and related issues exist on the Bluray camp.
I wouldn't assume that you need to just dump the player. The problem is, how do you know when it is an actual hardware problem when software/firmware symptoms are the same?