Well, all is not exactly lost. A number of DVD players on the market now are truly multi media compatible - they will play (redbook compliant) audio cds, cd-rs, cd-rws, dvds, and .. yea ... mp3s, while not costing the earth.
Friend of mine has one of these machines, and transfers all her mp3 stuff on to cd-r in mp3 format, saving storage space on her hard drive while still being able to play all the stuff on any old hi-fi, depending on how the machine is hooked into the audio chain.
Seems like the way to go, if anyone's thinking of a (smallish) investment in new hardware.