I realise that all dev on empeg software has come to a halt

Easy there, cowboy. Two of the Empeg's flagship 3rd party projects, jEmplode and Hijack, have both had multiple releases within the past week. Is that what you would call "a halt"? In addition to Mike and Mark's efforts, there are dozens of other guys who contribute on occasion, but aren't quite as prolific as those guys.

The reason you don't see as much development on the Empeg as you might on, say, an iPAQ or ReplayTV or Gameboy Advance is simple -- there are only a bit more than 4000 Empegs in existence on this planet, so it's a much smaller pool of hackers to draw from. Given this limitation, and the fact that the product has been discontinued, I think the pace of development is pretty damn impressive.

Anyway, as for this image panner, I've said this is something I can handle. I just have had zero free programming time between work and grad school. If/when I come up with something, I will of course release it with full source.