Well, your guess is wrong: of course I know of the History submenu, which is indeed very useful, but as its name implies it serves a different purpose.
Let me enumerate in order of importance the reasons why the History menu is inadequate for the purpose of knowing the value of the playcount and the scores:
1) The database is synced asynchronously, and this means that more often than not the information is written after the song I'm listening has finished playing - not very useful
2) The "Most Played" entry in the menu is the only one displaying counts and scores, but you have access only to autoscore and it's limited to Top100
3) The Database is one of the Rockbox features I love more because it offers great versatility in creating playlists, but lacks in immediacy when you need to inspect informations rather than filter them: to use it the way you suggest is like use a set of pliers to turn a screw.
I did a simple experiment: while in WPS I used the Database as you suggested (I use an iRiver 20GB with Cabbie theme)
* Press ON to retrieve Main Menu
* Scroll up to select "Database"
* Scroll up 4 times to select "History" (the item lies in the bottom of the menu and is not displayed in the first screen)
* This looks fabricated, but I swear it isn't
: wait for the database to be updated/refreshed/whatelse (1500 tracks)
* Select "Most Played" and search for the song I'm listening: I'm lucky and it's in the Top100 - but you have to search for it.
Sounds practical to you, when a simple pressure of PLAY+SELECT provides me all the track's info?
I know that I can use tagnavi files to customize the aspect of the Database and create an entry that displays only 1 song with count and score, but I can't see how it can mitigate the effects of points 1) and 3) nor how i can display userscore in addition to autoscore.
By the way, I can't follow you when you assert that it makes no sense in displaying the data on Track Info screen: they are not MP3 tags, but are surely relevant metadata coming form a different source: they're also accessible during playing, because otherwise WPS couldn't draw them... so, where's the problem?
I don't get either your objection about the fact that the Database and Runtime Data are optional: MP3 tags are optional too, I guess that if they are missing, then they are not displayed. So, what prevents Rockbox from doing the same?
I don't want to seem harsh or unrespectful for what you and the other devs have done and will continue to do with Rockbox but I think I've raised a valid point about what I perceive as a lack of the user interface... the usage of Database menu scarcely addresses the problem.
Probably "go and code it yourself" would have been a more honest answer. I suspect that in your next reply you'll agree!