Hi,

> It might even be possible that Winamp itself provides
> hooks to a running instance of itself via command line
> parameters (one can hope) which would simplify the
> task greatly.

Winamp (v2 at any rate, I haven't worked with v3) has a great API, including
hooks via the command line, which is nicely documented here:

http://winamp.com/nsdn/winamp2x/dev/sdk/api.jhtml

HTH
Jon