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In my opinion, there is nothing close to Amarok on the horizon for the linux desktop. I just recently tried to get rhythmbox, banshee and amarok up and running on my admittedly obscenely bloated music collection. End result? XML based databases are no good for tens of thousands of entries. MYSQL is the only way to go. I have had the same results with web-based media front-ends such as netJuke (is dead, long live netJuke), Jinzora, and Zina. They all bomb out just trying to index my collection.

Amarok, since about 1.2, has been very very solid. Almost no crashes I can remember. Plus, it hooks into last.fm to provide me with great stats on my listening habits, all in crunchy web2.0 nuggets. The context information, lyrics, and wikipedia hook are all outstanding. Scripting is simple and can massively extend the player either by just downloading some premade extensions, or rolling your own. Album cover support is the best out there (although I have not tried writing the album covers, I know it keeps them in it's .kde subdirectory... I use AlbumArtQT for album cover writing, which is AWESOME!). The onscreen display is configurable and really pretty much perfect for my needs.

All this, and I am still on 1.3, although I have played with 1.4 Ubuntu decided it was not quite ready for 6.06 I guess. I will be testing out ubuntu edgy this week, so we shall see what they have done with it.