More important is it can fill the gap for speaker audio path.
As I've noticed - internal speakers (esp. on n810) play fine when high frequencies are attenuated or there is no any (like on low quality streams). Playing 192kbit audio can be fatal to ears using speakers, simple correction makes audio sound great (as for mobile device) - I prefer listening to the Internet radio on n810 (48k, 64k streams) on it's speakers than my laptop or monitor built in ones.

That's why I think EQ is crucial.

Not to mention that XMMS is one fo players where one don't have to fight with all ID3 tag idea... simply plays selected files in selected order. What can be better