FOX seems to think that downloading entire playlists using emplode and restoring id3's from filenames (using MP3 Studio) would do the trick ? that sounds easy.

It's not easy. It's rather tricky, but it can be done. First thing you have to know is that Emplode doesn't offer enough file name options to do the job, you must use JEmplode instead. It must be the latest version of JEmplode. Beyond that, please click here to read another thread where I answered this very same question only a few minutes ago. I give a complete explanation of how to use MP3 Tag Studio to retag your files based on the file names supplied by Jemplode.