OK, OK, so I was lying, what a scumbag. When I download the playlists to check the order, they are actually downloaded in the apparently modified order they play back in.

And guess what - it seems consistent in the way it scrambles them, but it is not consistent in which lists it chooses to scramble. Out of three downloads, it scrambled 3 (this weekend), on Monday 2, and yesterday evening none.

What it does is as follows:

I select the "youngest member" (first ripped) in Exploder, then ctrl A to get the rest, copy to the new empeg playlist, it appears again in the correct order, I do a sync, and instead of playlist order 1,2,3,4,5....10, I get back (consistently, when it happens) 3,2,1,4,5....10!!