As to the media player, it is just the UI that is closed. It is dead simple for even a non-developer hacker-type like me to write a quick-and-dirty replacement UI. Honestly, I think this is Ideology and Religion here, which is why you won't get many actual developers on the "open up the UI" bandwagon.

For other things openness is much more important. If you were to ask, like lardman, "So how do I auto-focus the camera in Fremantle," and you got, "you'll have to wait for us to reveal that info," you might have more of a valid complaint against closed source components then...