There are only a few small advantages and reasons i didn't do what you mentioned, but i can definitely see your point. You could do most of what you can do with the slimp3 by just having a docked empeg.

But here are my reasons:
I have a couple of empegs, one is my backup, the other is the one i use all the time. I'd rather not use the backup so it can remain exactly that, a backup instead of another empeg that gets a lot of use. On top of that, the backup doesn't have nearly enough hard drive space to hold my entire music collection, and i don't wanna spend the money to upgrade it because of the whole idea of it being a backup.

I could just use my main unit and dock it when i get home, but Kelly likes to listen to music when i'm not home and that would leave her musicless if i have my empeg with me.

All of my music is on a server machine, which is always on anyway, that's what it's for. I like the idea of having all of my music in one central place, and not having to mirror it on the empeg. I am always adding and making changes, so i'd have to sync the empeg all the time to keep it current. Not a big deal i guess, but another step.

This isn't an advantage for me since i only need one, but there's the ability to have multiple slimp3s thoughout your house, and have them playing different streams, or even sync them.

There are other small advantages that the slimp3 has, like the web interface (which the empeg has the capability of reproducing, but i'd have to code it... not sure about the search though) which has a number of cool little features. The plug in's available for it are pretty awesome as well... you mentioned the radio streaming which is a big one for me. There's stock tickers, weather, news, all kinds of stuff.

I guess another part of it is that it's in constant development and things are being added all the time.

Hm. I guess that explains most of it, but you definitely made me wonder why i didn't just use a docked empeg. I think the first three reasons i gave are the biggies.