anyone know where i can find a good program that converts .PNG to .JPG without ruining the quality too much? And when I mean too much...I mean to a point where it seems coarse rather than smooth.

i usually use psp8, quality is pretty good
see here.
the image of jennifer used to be a png, now its a jpg

yea paint shop pro does a pretty good job, when you save the picture, click on options, and set the compression factor to 1

Photoshop also works well for converting formats.