If I only had to play the song for a second, that might be reasonable, but I have tried stopping after playinga song for 1 minute and it did not change the last played setting. My goal is to simulate having played the song without actually having to listen to the whole song.
Here is when I need it: I decide I want to modify one of the extended MP3 properties so I can create a smartlist using these properties to generate playlists matching some criteria. Since I have thousands of MP3's, I cannot do this in a single day nor do I wish to listen to every one of them to see if they meet the criteria. Often within a few seconds, I can tell. So I create a smartlist that displays MP3's meeting certain criteria that have not been played in the last n days. This give me a workable list to review. However, I must listen to almost the complete song to get it to stamp as having been played even when I know the song met or failed the critiera I was listening for. So my property for the song is updated and I am ready to move on but must wait until the song is finished.