Everyone, please give this app a 1 star review and mention how bad it is in comments. Then go to it in the store, go to details and report concern to Microsoft... click poor performance. With a 2.4/5 rating right now out of 790 ratings, maybe if this is dragged down to 1.5 or 1 stars they'll eventually wake up and pay attention to their own platform.
It's not necessary to me that MS make a great built-in podcast app. They *should*, obviously, out of basic pride in their platform or whatever, but basically I care about getting a good podcast experience, not whose logo is on the app that gives it to me. WP 8.1 allows apps to save data to an SD card - this was, for me, the only thing keeping good third-party podcast apps from being great - so now, I don't have to care whether the built-in app ever gets good, because now I have options.
Sure, the good ones cost a buck or two - but I probably spend at least six or eight hours a week, every week, listening to podcasts, so that huge investment is worth it. (I will never understand why people who spend (sometimes) hundreds of dollars on a phone, and (usually) many tens of dollars every month to get data for it will balk at spending $1.99 once for a great app they'll use every day...)