OK - Here's a common occurance for me in shuffle mode:

Soft music, immediately cut off into loud, obnoxious jungle/hip-hop...

Cure: A crossfader!!!!!

It would be fairly simple to implement, and would make the shuffle mode that much more pleasant.. Even if the cross-fade was only at the beginning of the song (much easier to do... just have a menu option under "sound" called cross-fade, at the beginning of a song, drop by 10db, then raise within the next 5-6 seconds...), it would still make the shuffle mode that much more enjoyable..

Scnerio number 2:
Start car, get blasted by a song because I forgot that the volume was all the way up last time I was in the car..
Solution? CROSSFADE at the beginning when the empeg is turned on...

-mark

...proud to have owned one of the first Mark I units