As for aero tiles... That's a Win8 thing? I guess it's a valid complaint. I think you can set global keyboard shortcuts for those actions, if that helps.
Aero is a vista+ thing. Hover over a playing vlc in the taskbar and you see skip/pause/play.
Foobar is classic to the cost of UX. We've figured out for a long time now bigger buttons are important, there's no need for separate pause/play especially if stop is right there.
It doesn't need a slew of crappy gradients and fancy shit, Just drag the interface forward a decade that's all. Usable with a touch screen should be a minimum now.
As for aero tiles... That's a Win8 thing? I guess it's a valid complaint. I think you can set global keyboard shortcuts for those actions, if that helps.