the reason it was the "wrong" Tom Sawyer was because somehow the "Test Audio Tracks" playlist appeared first in the playlist tree

How about approaching it from the other end?

If the player could differentiate between 'original' and 'copy' tracks, this wouldn't be too difficult, would it? Shuffle mode could skip dupes, and whenever you 'unshuffled' a list, Emma/Mark would always continue with the playlist from which the original came. Playlist maintenance would become more difficult though / what to do when you delete the 'original'?

or

Breaking branches off the play tree, by using a playlist indicator that will exclude it (and the ones below) from being played from lists higher up in the hierarchy, while they (and decendants) can still be played when directly selected. This would skip any test and demo lists when shuffling the whole unit from the root, and still allow 'demo' lists with multiple playlists (artists / albums).

My 2p
Any other ideas?


Henno
mk2 nr 6