Barney, Lets start from the bottom

WMP is an XP thang, so dinnae fret about that

The "artist" listing, a useful feature of version 7, now only includes tracks copied from CD, whereas before it showed everything
Go to Tools | Options | Copy Music Tab
Click the File Name button in the Copy Music to this location
Choose your Options
It is still there in the Media Library, you have to expand All Music and Artist

I personally don't have the Copy Protect options checked, nor do I have the computer acquire licences in the Privacy section
On entering a playlist, I don't like the way the entries are slowly written down the screen, wasting several seconds when I'm trying to find a particular track.

Smaller Playlists or a faster computer would solve that

I don't like the gigantic "information" box that appears whenever the cursor hovers over a listing, completely obscuring the next half dozen entries, when all I have to do if I want to find the details is to scroll sideways

Actually it was there in WMP7

Of all the Things I've lost, I miss my mind the most