A4Q Driveline Shudder - An Update

["Legelis, John" <John.Legelis@fmr.com>]

My wife took our '97 A4Q5sp for its 15k service - one of the items to be
inspected was the driveline shudder that both my wife and I have been
recently noticing.  This is what appeared on the service invoice - 

"Problem Description:
Vehicle shakes at 4k rpm when going from 3rd to 4th when accelerating
hard -please advise

13546 Normal reaction - the trans axle will shutter (sic) when shifted
hard as discussed with Audi's technical staff.  This is a normal
characteristic for this model and may be attributable to the dual mass
flywheel"

The following conversation ensued with the service manager:

Wife - "So, when can you fix this?"
SM - "It's not a problem, many people have asked about this - it's a
charactersistic of the vehicle"
Wife - "So, you're telling me they designed it like this on purpose?"
SM - "It's not a problem, many people have asked about this - it's a
charactersistic of the vehicle"
...ad nauseum

A couple of interesting points to note:
1) This is the first time I've heard of anyone representing Audi
actually acknowledging the 'characteristic'
2) A representative of Audi acknowledged that 'many people' have asked
about/experienced the 'characterstic'
3) Audi seems unwilling to do anything about recitfying the
'characteristic'

I'm not sure where to go with this at this point.  I feel somewhat
comforted by the fact the Audi is at least acknowledging the issue, and
that my car is not the only one experiencing the 'characteristic',  but
I consider it slim that Audi will go through the expense of updating a
flywheel.  

A couple of questions:
1) Could a dual-mass flywheel cause this problem?
1) Does Audi have a prior history of problems with a dual-mass flywheel?
3) Has anyone had any luck getting Audi to actually *fix* this
charactersistic?

Anyone interested in joining up to pursue this matter?