One of the main reasons this solution works for me in particular is that I don't really use any of those features you mention, though I did extensively in my first year or two of owning the empeg. After a while, the empeg changed the way I listen to music. Now I'm so used to just setting it on shuffle and skipping the tracks I don't want to listen to that I don't need any of that stuff. Also, when I do get to a song whose entire album I want to listen to, thats easy enough to do with Simplify Media.

Searching is an issue right now but like I said, there are a bunch of sites up now where you can simply search whatever song it is you're looking for and it'll stream it right then and there. It finds about 90% of the stuff I'm usually looking for. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if Simplify Media got updated with a search feature.

Finally, one thing I forgot to mention is that in the last few years, I've also gotten into podcasts and a couple morning radio shows. The iphone or really any web enabled phone make accessing these extremely easy now. Pretty much any mp3 link streams awesome, even if it is a 45 minute long segment. No downloading/syncing/deleting necessary. Miss a This American Life episode? No problem just bring up thisamericanlife.org on your phone and start streaming.

I use a TON of data a month, even when I was on Edge and so far I haven't had any issues but I share your concern about ATT throttling or doing something stupid like that. Reception is definitely an issue but like I said during those stretches where I have no 3G, I can fall back on the 6 gigs of music I have on the device itself.

This is definitely not the solution for everyone but it works great for me.