I don't think the PhatBox is so bad. It fills a need and is about as good as it can be given the interface limitations of OEM integration.

I don't know what you mean about the 99 limit. Mine just wraps back around. What happens if you keep going up?

A tip for faster navigating is to use the ff/rr scan buttons and then it will walk through the alphabet. When you get to the letter you want you can use the track up to get to the particular artist. But 700 artists is a lot given the inability to set up a hierarchical playlist structure. You might be happier if you limited yourself. I know, I know... the point of a HDD jukebox is that you don't have to limit yourself but life has tradeoffs. If you want OEM integration like your wife does and I do then the tradeoff may be only 20 gigs of music to keep the navigation managable.

I can find the artist/album I want using my steering wheel controls without taking my eyes of the road. In this way, it is superior to the empeg.

What I miss the most is the text display. (This is an OEM interface limitation. I don't know about your Touareg but other VW/Audi systems aren't CD-Text capable.) The PhatBox will "read" the track details but that disrupts the music and isn't nearly as convenient as reading it. But I was never really into all the geeky capabilities of the empeg. I just want an mp3 jukebox.