The entire discussion up to this point relates to when playing audio (why am I not surprized?). It's barely half the problem. What about when playing videos/movies/series? That progress bar should/could (upon being triggered by mouse over, by pressing Pause, etc) show what am I playing - small coverart, video and audio codecs, resolution, time when the movie will end. That should be position down and not up. That should be skinable related to Theater view (when in it) and not Standard view.
The whole Playing Now could use some 2010 suggestions... Floating layers a la Aero Peek when going back from watching something to Theater View list. More creative view options for audio (I'm one step away from mentioning skinning again) - you may want to see and work with the list (reorder, delete, etc like you guys mentioned above), or may want to see more info about what's playing -> more space for background/artist fanart, rotating media (CD) coverart (yes, this idea is from XBMC), options to place metadata info from song tags wherever I want on the screen. And I can keep on going...