I searched through my film / TV show collection and couldn't find a single AVI with a 44.1KHz MP3 audio track.
An AVI with 44.1KHz WMA audio played fine.
Also, standalone 44.1KHz MP3 audio files play fine, making it rather baffling that such tracks won't play when wrapped in an AVI container!
There was another thread on the forums that actually got a reply from WD staff (not the moderation team). They prefixed their thread title with [BUG]. Perhaps that got it more attention? May be worth editing your title and see if you can catch yourself a WD tech staff response. 
-edit-
Found a music video I downloaded from Stage6 back in the day. It has MPEG Layer3 44.1KHz audio. Plays fine! 
I'm accessing the files via Network Shares, are you using a Media Server by any chance?
Can you paste up some MediaInfo stats for that file?
Very strange..
Here's the output from the one AVI I've got that has 44.1Khz mp3 audio:
General Complete name : Gnarls Barkley - Crazy.avi Format : AVI Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave File size : 31.2 MiB Duration : 3mn 1s Overall bit rate : 1 439 Kbps Writing application : VirtualDubMod 1.5.10.2 (build 2540/release) Writing library : VirtualDubMod build 2540/release Video ID : 0 Format : MPEG-4 Visual Format settings, BVOP : Yes Format settings, QPel : No Format settings, GMC : No warppoints Format settings, Matrix : Default (H.263) Muxing mode : Packed bitstream Codec ID : DX50 Codec ID/Hint : DivX 5 Duration : 3mn 1s Bit rate : 1 301 Kbps Width : 640 pixels Height : 480 pixels Display aspect ratio : 1.212 Frame rate : 23.976 fps Resolution : 8 bits Colorimetry : 4:2:0 Scan type : Progressive Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.177 Stream size : 28.2 MiB (90%) Writing library : DivX 6.5.1 (UTC 2007-03) Audio ID : 1 Format : MPEG Audio Format version : Version 1 Format profile : Layer 3 Mode : Joint stereo Format_Settings_ModeExtension : MS Stereo Codec ID : 55 Codec ID/Hint : MP3 Duration : 3mn 1s Bit rate mode : Constant Bit rate : 128 Kbps Channel(s) : 2 channels Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz Stream size : 2.77 MiB (9%) Alignment : Split accross interleaves Interleave, duration : 42 ms (1.00 video frame) Interleave, preload duration : 500 ms
The audio streams seem near identical BUT I notice that my file has a DivX video stream, unlike your file, which is XviD.
I'll see if I can re-encode mine to XviD and try it again to see if that makes a difference.. (it shouldn't but you never know!).
-update-
Ok, that didn't change anything. My file still plays without issue. The only difference I can see is that your audio alignment states "aligned on interleaves".
Something you could try doing is putting the audio and video streams from the non-working AVI into an MKV container (use MKVmerge GUI, part of MKVtoolnix). Just drag / drop the file onto the GUI and start muxing. 
If the audio still doesn't work in an MKV container, perhaps it could be a problem with the encoding rather than a problem with support in AVI containers?
And there's always the 'standard' factory reset advice:
If you haven't done so since updating your firmware, do a factory reset.
1) Press the hard reset button on the side of the unit (paperclip will help). Let it reboot.
2) Go to Settings > System Setting > Reset to Factory Defaults. Let it reboot.
3) Put the unit in standby and unplug from the mains. Leave it powerless for 5 minutes.
Plug the power back in and it will restart. Log back into your shares (need to re-enter user/pass) or media server and try the file again. I recently had an issue with TS / M2TS files not playing that was solved by the 3rd step.
A final option would be to upload a smaller non-working sample AVI to Rapidshare / Megaupload and I'll test it out on my Live to make sure it's not specific to your unit. Are you still running the 0.17 firmware?
Glad you got it working, and a relatively painless fix too - bonus!
Just for reference, I was playing the file via network share but it also plays fine via media server (TVersity).
Do you know / remember what program created the broken AVI files? Might help others who find themselves in the same boat.
If you're happy that this is resolved, mark your above post as the solution.
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