Bass and treble management is definitely needed. There's no question about. There are prospects for that, e.g. the guy responsible for QuasarMX will likely work on that, same does cepiperez who's developing Flow Player. We shall see.

As I noted elsewhere, I wish to see a two simple 'bass' and 'treble' knobs in a player. That should do. And yeah, proper IEMs are a must. Monster Turbine Gold and Denon AH-C710 here. Both good. Monster delivers better bass, yet Denon, as usual, is all about crispy clear mid-range.