First, let me say that Beta 7 is great! But due to the wealth of features that have to be controlled, the UI will become more and more complicated. One problem I can foresee already is that the main menu will eventually grow beyond a size that can reasonably be handled. So I'd like to propose two things
1) Get rid of duplicate functionality. The Loudness feature, for example, is nicely covered by the new Equalizer function. I'd suggest you name one of the 16 Custom equalizer settings "Loudness", and preset it with appropriate values. Then, there are Volume keys on the remote and on the unit (for those who wonder: just press the right or left button long enough), so you don't need a Volume setting in the menu. The same is true for Power Off (well, you'll have to define a key sequence on the remote for that - why not 0-0-0?), so you could get rid of that as well.
2) make the menu system hierarchical. Settings and actions should be grouped in submenus, ordered by similarity and importance. For example, "Next Visual" and "Previous Visual" are - for me - not important enough to be in the main menu. There should be only rather few main menu entries (the most important, of coure, leftmost). I could think of the following structure:

Sound
    (Volume - if you want)
    Equalizer
    Balance
    Fader
Current Playlist
    Mark current song
    Shuffle on/off
    Skip song forward
    Skip song backward
    Skip inner playlist forward
Playlists
    (here hierarchy of playlists, with Play buttons)
Source (called Channel now - is there a chance to rename it, please?)
    MP3
    Radio
    Aux
Radio
    Next Station
    Previous Station
    Store Current Station
    Store 10 Strongest Stations (a *very* handy feature if you travel long distances a lot!)
    TA on/off (Traffic Announcements to interrupt MP3 or Aux)
Display
    Info on/off/timed
    Next Visual
    Previous Visual
    (maybe a list of visuals by name?)

This proposal is by no means complete or even very thorougly thought about. It's meant only as a base for discussions. You'll find also that there are some other wishes neatly hidden in it - like switching the empeg off with the remote, the TA, or "Strongest 10 Stations" - that have nothing to do with the current topic. I thought I'd mention them anyway...

Note that the structure doesn't say anything about what the sub-menues should look like. There'd probably be enough room for *vertical* menues (so they look similar to what people are used to from their PC/Max/X-Window/whatever), but cascaded *horizontal* menues may just be easier to read and navigate.

My last concern is with the four buttons on the front. Their use should be as consistent as possible. So, whenever there's a menu or a setting on the display, the left and right button should be used for navigating, the bottom button should execute the menu entry (which can also mean: open the next sub-menu), and the top button could be used to go back up one menu level (if it's not used for other things like in the Equalizer).

Dear empeg team, please don't think I'm trying to tell you how you should do your job. I know that I may sound like that sometimes, but my only intention is to provide some input to maybe think about. What you do with it is totally up to you!

Cheers
Daniel