Ok, I've gone ahead and started with RioPlay.

I got it *almost* limping along.

1. Display works, no changes needed.
2. Key codes are different so I had to fake them to limp along with the empeg remote.
3. Menu system works though I think it thinks there is more room than there really is for displaying stuff. It seems to go off the bottom of the screen.
4. Once I put in new key codes, the remote works, for better or worse (long story).
5. I downloaded Dell's digital audio receiver software (RioReceiver clone) from some obscure hidden place, no where else could I find the real deal, for windows.
6. RioPlay found the windows (Dell DAR) server and songs ... I could jump to different tracks in the list. It displayed the names (for the most part) of the track on the VFD correctly.
7. Shoutcast attempts merely crash the application ... too late to go into searching for it now.
8. Audio doesn't work yet. But it doesn't complain either. I got MAD compiled and built with no real trouble ... but running "madplay" on a wav file doesn't produce anything but errors like "syncrhonization error, blah blah". When rioplay tries to play a song, it goes through MAD ... I don't see any errors then, but I also don't hear no tunes.

Sleepy.