I haven't had a New Beetle problem with a CV (yet), but I have a habit of buying cars with FWD and about 100K miles, so I've had my share of CV issues.
I look at it this way: BOTH CVs and boots on the axle are the same age, so when one goes, the other usually isn't far behind. Also, whole axle assemblies aren't usually that much more expensive than 2 CV kits. Also, you only crawl under the front end once, and you don't have to pull the joints apart (we all know from our old VWs how messy that is). You usually wind up pulling the whole axle, even for just one joint. Sooooo, there's my $.02
I'd also bet the CVs where your jerking issues are coming from. Of course, for a lot of FWD cars you wind up just about taking the whole hub apart to pull the axle anyway, so it may not take much more work to replace the bearings, just to be safe. They're as old as the CVs too, aren't they?
Have towels handy!
