Give Sync a shot. I was highly impressed with it, even though I only had it for 4 days this spring in a rental car. I plugged in my Zune and in about five minutes the initial syncing was done and I could use voice commands to play anything on my player. I agree, navigating without voice is a nightmare compared to the empeg, but in the end I have to admit that I feel better about not looking away from the road...

*edit*

ps- I also haven't had a car with an empeg in it for about two years now. I miss it, but sadly I listen to podcasts more than music now (which kind of saddens me too - have to get back to music sometime), and the empeg just wasn't a good solution for podcast listening...