Yes, you have to populate the sd cards with at least a playlist for each album. You can add extra playlists for favourite combinations of albums or tracks as you like.
This is how the old school music players worked and at that time people created playlists as a matter of routine. The latest players are sure to use playlists as well, as they probably evolved from the old players. Software is rarely written from scratch on the principle that if it works reuse it as much as possible. The difference is that the latest players likely internalise their playlists so the users never see them, but I'm sure they are still there.
The reason that the gofigure music playback functionality is so limited is that even to do the supposedly simple thing that you ask would imply Chord having to implement something close to a "full fat" music app. That would be a major effort for them for little reward as far as the vast majority of the user base is concerned. Like it or not, you and I are outliers in the way we use the devices
But as I said, once set up it works very well. Of course, the sound is lovely otherwise none of us would be here talking about it
It is virtually in its own class when used as a DAP. For this reason I went all in hard on the playlists and didn't give up on the 2go. You could also consider using an old phone for the Hugo 2go. Then the WiFi from the 2go being dead would not be an issue.
As an aside, my Note 20 Ultra with the latest OS update seems to handle listening to "dead" WiFi in a much more intelligent way than the previous Note 9 did. When it gets no Internet from the WiFi connection it will automatically go to mobile data to find the Internet.
On the subject of DAVE, I have M Scaler and DAVE in my second audio system and I can tell you that the sound is just awesome. Don't tar the DAVE with the same brush as the 2go.
As to the Bartok, my main system has the full dCS front end consisting of Verdi, Purcell, Verona, and Elgar so I am a great fan of dCS. One of the joys of hifi for me however is the fun of upgrading. I'm sure that the Bartok is a great device but as a one-box system with no clear upgrade path apart from chucking it out and starting over from scratch it would not be for me.
