One possible cause for audio & video sync issues is also high CPU usage, please remember that on dual core CPUs the issue can be triggered when CPU usage hits the 50%, as most of the codecs are only single threaded.
I've seen high cpu usage on my system with the touchscreen plugin, but when I disable it even on hd content the cpu usage is about a few percent.
So my conclusion for now is:
Only 24Hz RR seems to have this problem (haven't seen it with 50Hz or 60Hz).
The problem occurs with vmr and exclusive mode enabled.
Some codecs are more affected than others (cyberlink seems to perform best).
Using reclock solves the problem but media start is slow.
Disabling exclusive mode solves the problem too but causes tearing and sometimes media won't start (in my case - not sure if this is common).
Haven't tested evr because of heavy tearing.
Outside of MP there's no problem regardless of the codecs used.