Does Ubuntu following the Gnome HIG 2.0? If so then this is a breach of the guidelines set by the Gnome HIG 2.0 and those bugs against totem & rhythmbox should probably be reopened.
I will quote the part about media player toolbars from here http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/2.0/toolbars.html#toolbars-media "Show separate Stop and Pause buttons. Do not change Play to Pause while the clip is playing." Both of these applications break the Guidelines Tho I personally prefer the rhythmbox method, I'm going to place some hope that there is good logic behind the Guidelines. -- Lack of totem-rhythmbox coherence https://launchpad.net/bugs/74390 -- desktop-bugs mailing list desktop-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/desktop-bugs