Call me a wimp and a weenie... but I don't want to deal with the hassles involved with a non-standard kernal.

You don't need a non-standard kernel for displayserver, just the developer image (so you can install it). You only need the kernel patch if you want to control the empeg remotely through displayserver (and some other IR related applications), but displayserver works fine without it.

I'm not sure, but I think displayserver does not save the database file. Correct me if I'm wrong, please.

Also, displayserver requires some hoop jumping -- export to a csv file, use that as an "index" for retrieving the song files, something like that. I just want to hook up my USB cable, click an icon on my desktop, and walk away and leave it running overnight and come back the next morning and know that my data files and song files are safe.

I'm not talking about downloading the songs one by one, I'm talking about displayserver's separate backup mechanism (which you'll see if you read my previous message carefully). There's a 'System backup' link on displayserver's homepage that will land you one giant tar file with the entire contents of the music partitions, including all songs and database files.