I must agree with you, GB, they’re on the right track with the Fuze+ in terms of overall size and function. The AMS device platform has a major edge with handling the music database, currently. Solving that, and making the new machine boot as rapidly as the Clip+ does, would be wonderful.
I’ll more than gladly sacrifice a few MB of memory to that end.
As we’re mentioning “touch” in this thread, getting the touchpad refined on the Fuze+ will be a huge stride in the right direction, as the machine has great potential.
Bob 
