although I reckon the average emplode user is actually more likely to have sanitised their ID3 tags

Don't assume that.

The average empeg car owner will probably have done this because we here on the BBS keep pounding everyone over the head with it, but not the average owner of the device you're describing.

The user would have to compile the MP3-CD with it in mind, but we could use folders as album names (allows them to create their own compilation albums easily) or similar schemes. Do we think the average user of this sort of product will be happier to make CDs using the file structure to categorise the music, or to make sure all their ID3 tags are correct?

Why does it have to be one or the other? Why not all?

A clever piece of software could make a pretty good educated guess, by examining these four elements and comparing/contrasting them:

- ID3V2 tag
- ID3V1 tag
- Folder structure and folder names
- File names

... and decide which of those things actually represent the proper categorization for the song. It could decide whether folder structure is artist/album and go from that. It could parse the file name and see if it falls into a pattern that indicates artist-album or album-artist or if the file name contains the track number, etc. It could see if the file has synched V1/V2 tags and if not, which fields were missing in which tag, and could decide the reliability factor of a given tag.

If it is only the play order that is affected, it may be something we have to work around.

And let me just chime in with my personal opinion that, by default, no songs should ever play in alphabetical order by song title. When the album-order is known, always default to album-order (and chronological album order for multiple albums if possible) in any sequential playback.