I agree this needs to be addressed in a larger forum. I would give them the benefit of the doubt if this was their first attempt at music. But they actually had a great solution in zune. Having worked at Microsoft for 17 years, I can assure your this turned into a political battle and not a technical issue. I am positive that the Xbox Music team thought they could do it better and came up with this solution without ever talking to the Zune team. Then when it came time to choose, the Xbox Sr Leader won the fight and put Xbox music in. I am sure that they explained it by saying if we just get the Xbox Music app to ship in the box of Windows 8, even if it is not up to speed, we can updated through Windows update. Revenue did not meet projections, so they trim staff wherever they can. I am sure that they "Reorganized" and don't have that much focus on music now. I have seen this happen too many times to know that this is not the case. Don't believe me? I can assure you that the Media Player dev team is not the same as the Xbox Music team. So they have at least two teams working on ways to play music, you can bet there are others.
For me, I worked very hard to get Zune and the Zune pass to work for my family. I have a central Windows home Server(Another product Microsoft has abandoned) that stores all of my music. I have over 10,000 songs on my server, I have the old style Zune pass that gives me 10 free songs. Of the 10,000 songs about 3,000 are Zune DRM's songs and cannot be played on any WP8. There is no app to go through and change the DRM, or automatically download songs, I am just screwed. Microsoft abandoned the app and basically flipped off the users.
My work around is that once a month, I log onto Zune, download my 10 songs, and manage all of my music and playlists through Windows Media player. I am actively looking for another music service that I can use. I am 100% positive that Microsoft will once again change their direction on music, when the next powerful senior leader of a group comes in and wants to take over music. I refuse to put any time or effort into Xbox music.
If you do decide to right the article, here are some questions you need to ask.
1. The Zune community has put a lot of effort into trusting Microsoft and making Zune work for their lifestyle. With Xbox music, you completely turned your back on them and provided them no support or bridge to the new product. Why should Xbox Music trust you won't do this again in 3-4 years? What kind of Guarantee around support will you offer. With your track record, what advantages would it be to go to Xbox Music?
2. iTunes has had the same DRM and same structure since it was released, why did you change? Why can't you be consistent like apple?
3. Why does Xbox Music not support the same features as some peoples Zune pass. Some Zune Pass subscriptions offer 10 free downloads, Xbox Music does not support that.
4. Why did you not offer some kind of conversion program that would allow people to convert their old Zune music to the new Xbox Music without having to re-download all the songs.
5. Other than it is the only music player/music Store front on Windows Phone 8, what are the advantages of Xbox Music over iTunes. With Zune it was easy to identify the advantages, with Xbox we don't see any.
6. Will Microsoft prevent Apple from releasing an iTunes app on Windows Phone?
I am sure that there are other good questions. Those are the first I would ask.