As a previous Kaleidescape owner, and the system is all about the media, I can tell you that while cover art, and other eye candy things are nice it is not what one really focuses on when they want to sit down and watch content.
With a Kaleidescape system everyone is blown away by the cover art shuffle view but it gets very old after a couple days and I find that the view I used the most was the "List view"
Here is the image of the
movie list view
Think of it this way: You sit down because you want to watch a movie,
1. maybe you want to sort it alphabetically as you know the movie you are looking for
2. maybe you want to watch a comedy so you highlight the genre and click on comedy and the list is sorted by genre
3. maybe you are sitting down with the family (including kids) so you move over to rating and click PG and the list is sorted by rating and shows easily the movies you can watch
4. Maybe you are currently on say Airforce One with Harrison Ford and you want to see what else you have with Harrison Ford in it so you highlight the actor and select Harrison Ford and now it is sorted by Harrison Ford.
5. maybe you like a particular director...see #4 above as it works the same
6. maybe you only have 90 mins to bedtime or till you have to head out so you want to see what you have in your collection that is 90 mins or less. move over to the time and select it and your collection is sorted by time.
Again if we are thinking less about JUST eye candy since Aeon delivers there!!! and more about using the system and focusing on the media I think this view works great. The same thing can be done with music too...
Now for adding some eye candy I am sure using transparency and fanart in the background along with some other goodies would be awesome. I just would not try to recreate every other view within this one as it has a purpose which is quickly helping you find content you want to watch.
Interested in hearing your thoughts