I'm running winSPWW2 (which should be the same as running winSMBT) under Ubuntu 9.10 which I strongly suggest, as has wine 1.0,1 included in it's repos. The game works absolutely fine with it, as long as it is run in windowed mode. I have the full version, and if you try to run it by double clicking the exe the launcher will not allow you to use the enhanced features. You can solve this by using the terminal command to launch the exe: "wine directory/to/the/game/WW2GameOptions.exe".
As for the disappearing interface issue, when it happens play with the visible gui, click "Preferences" or "Unit view" until the interface appears again and save the game. Restart the application and it will be fine again.
I had some sound issues too. By using the ALSA driver you can have decent quality and not delayed sounds with minor stuttering.
Hope it helps.
Re: Win(e)SPMBT under Linux. (Ubuntu 7.10)
Threaded Mode