my DVD playing (with MPlayer) is sluggish -- I tried everything they have in the readme, and my computer is definitely fast enough to be playing these things. What I was wondering, is could this be my DVD-ROM drives fault? And if so is there any way I can rip the image to my hdd and play it smoothly from there?

Did you try this as root ?(from the manual).

<HR>
hdparm -d1 -a8 -u1 (cdrom device)

This enables DMA access, read-ahead, and IRQ unmasking (read the hdparm man page for a detailed explanation).
<HR>

Most important part is the -d1 (DMA access).
Heard that using a ultra dma 66 or higher ide cable helps too.

I did try that -- it tells me that the operation is not permitted (the -d1 part)