Yeah, this is a nice feature, but it is not like the Archos doesn't have this (with Rockbox (open source firmware) though)

Please describe how this feature is done in Rockbox. How many buttons does it take to do this in Rockbox?

and if I had to remember a longer button combination, then I would be playing Tekken… just another example of a haphazardly designed interface.

Interfaces are always compromises. I think it's a pretty simple series of buttons. Roll the wheel and press it.

Yes, I agree, you've gotta be in the right screen before you can do that. But if you didn't have that, then you wouldn't be able to roll the wheel to scan through a song.

Tell us how you would have designed that interface? And please take into account all the other features that the same interface must support using a fixed number of hardware buttons. Remember, everything is a trade-off in any UI...