Wasn't there some problem with MC Patcher? I know I have never played around with it since I run Linux and it's winblows only. Besides, MMC has all the downgradibility I need, and my graphics card isn't really good enough to run HD Texture Packs. I do run Faithful Pack 32x, though, along with Forge and Optifine, and don't have any problems.
BTW MC patcher works with Mac and Linux. I have a Mac and it works fine. Just get the Jar file.
Will try out optifine.