My friend, as some have said in here, there is no reason for a system to look choppy in todays market. Even embedded DVR's are capable of giving great quality systems and with the new Hybrids some can even handle up to 1.3 mega pixel cameras. Its important that before purchasing any system, you get a realistic demonstration of the system you are going to purchase. Just looking at specs now-a-day can be very deceiving and even buying some recognized name doesn't guarantee the quality. You need to do your homework and see what the issues are, is it your system, it can be your cameras. Setting aside the search issues, how many FPS are your recording at? How many Channels does the system carry? (32 channel systems sound great, but the processing power is just not there for all cameras to be at 15FPS in most systems.
Remember analogs cameras just stram info, IP's process it but the higher the resolution you tend to give up in FPS.
This is why it is sometimes good to hire an independent consultant that has no bias towards any system as he receives no money from any company and will find you the system that meets all of your requirements and not get sold on a good spec sheet and sales pitch.