It looks like a very handy tool to have around for bootstrapping
software development.

Gee, I guess that never occurred to us .

No, seriously, the 'd' script (and the corresponding userver binary) are what we use to put a new player binary on the empeg, to avoid needing to build (and apply) an upgrade file.

One of the targets of the player Makefile is 'dstrip', which tars up the player binary (and fonts and visuals, etc.), and then sends it (using 'uclient') to the player configured in the Makefile.