Claghorn:
At the moment, my dream arduino would be identical to the Arduino Uno R3, but would have a dadgum jumper (or microswitch) on the auto reset instead of a trace you have to cut to disable reset and solder pads you have to join to turn reset back on.
Try a small electrolytic capacitor from the reset pin to ground. Value not terribly critical, 10µF - 47µF. 10µF works for me.