i think i can sumarize the improvement as: move to the next playlist in the same folder without starting at the top of the playlist hierarchy

I'll try to describe the PJB: it has 3 folder levels, no more. but all 3 are displayed at the same time.
example:
Set: rock
Folder: Randy Newman
Disc: 12 Songs

I can move the cursor to the Folder level and LEFT/RIGHT to select different Folders in the Rock Set. Or I can move it to the Set level or the Disc level and sroll through my Sets and Discs respectively. In some cases the empeg would be faster, for example to move to the first entry listed at the top level takes 3 clicks (right, down, down) but to get to most of the lower level items i can get there faster with the PJB.

[...]

just want to reiterate, the unit is wonderful and i don't have buyer's remorse, but i feel it is lacking a few "idiot" features to make it simple and easy to move around in my music or change my display

Ah, I see now. If I had to choose between empeg and PJB UI, I would always take empeg's (I have learned to use remote blindly, while it is velcroed somewhere handy). That said, empeg does lack some 'idiot functions'.

OK, due to idea of running order vs. playlist (in running order one can - and I do very often - splice other lists or individual tracks and manipulate in other ways), 'skip to next playlist' function is not doable. However, similar functionality could be achieved by opening the playlist tree at the most recently launched one, in stead of at the root (also frequent request). What nags me is that I seem to remember reading that such a function is somewhere in 2.0b3, but I could not find it (neither function nor reference to it).

Other 'idiot' function missing (it has been promissed, though) is 'stupid' bass and treble control easily accessible from knob sound menu (of course, in addition to, not in stead of, current excellent parametric equilizer).

Speaking of that, what happened to promised 'assign EQ preset to playlist/tune' feature?