I had a few ideas for the Karma as well (some of which are just reiterating ideas of elinenbe)

1. Get rid of the delays, or at least remove the hourglass from some of the processes. After owning a 30GB gen3 Ipod for a month, I became used to its quick response...although some operations DID take a long time...but it only seems to take longer if you see a stupid icon reminding you that you're waiting. If the operation is <2 sec, an hourglass is unnecessary.

2. Consider changing the silver button to operate as a reverse button in the menu hierarchy. Again, not to rip off the ipod, but it was nice to have a simple way to universally "back out" of any menu subsystem. Maybe hold the button for 2 seconds for the main menu?

3. Slimming the player down would have been nice, but to be honest I don't spec things for my pocket...I consider the Karma appropriate for me based on holding it in my hands, not by what a marketing website says, although I understand how that might frustrate some people.

4. RMM - what I consider to be a BIG problem, is that I have a few files that don't work well (BuyMusic.com files that don't properly transfer to portables, corrupt MP3 files, etc.). When synching, if RMM comes across one of these "bad" files, the synch halts and reports the error. This causes me to have to find the bad file, "hide" it from RMM, then start the synch again. I think the synch should just skip the file and report the bad ones at the end.

5. RMM - When displaying "My Music", it should allow you to delete a file from its database w/o removing it from the HD...similar to what WMP allows. This way I can remove afformentioned "bad" files from the synching list without having to stuff them in a random folder on my comp.

6. I kind of like the bubbles...maybe it's just me?

7. A manual release/renew command would be kind of nice. Lifting it out of the cradle is kind of ghetto, but not a major concern.

8. Standardize the functions of the scroll / Riostick to operate the same way, regardless of the menu / mode.

Conclusion: After returning my 3G ipod after 3 weeks in mid september so I could wait for the Rio, I have very mixed feelings. I can't help but admire how sleek the ipod is now. I can't honestly say that this product should have been shipped in its current condition. That being said, I am going to keep it because I believe that the folks at DNNA care more about their customers and fixing the problems of the player. I believe that it will become a much more refined player, although not necessarily one for grandma and grandpa. I don't believe that Apple really cares that much about the PC users...I always felt that my iPod had a "hostile" relationship with my PC.

So here's one Karma owner who's not entirely happy, but has faith....
(i'll update my list as I find more suggestions, as I've only had it less than 12 hours)

-John