Sorry for the delay, I've been quite busy for a while now.
I went back through and tested everything on the latest version of MMA Beta and AA and completely updated the OP with how everything stands as of now. I will touch on each section in your reply still for your convenience:
Re 2) At least for me personally this is a MASSIVE issue, because I often would like to play tracks by a certain artist. I have no problem with the list being limited (since it has to be given AAs limitations) as long as it is limited in a smart way (i.e. the same way everything else is in AA). Essentially, what I mean is that I would like it to work enough that I can at least make use of AAs "Search by Letter" feature and select the first 12 (or however many it it is) artists for each letter.
I get that it absolutely can't load the whole list because of how Android Auto works, but I thought of this as more of a bug since I figure it could at least work how it does in the Playlist view (again, being able to use Search by Letter to see the first 12 or so playlists for each letter), whereas right now you can't see ANY Artists AT ALL since the view never loads. So regardless of how it ends up needing to work, I feel that leaving it not working whatsoever is not acceptable in the long run lol. I will take any kind of functionality over none.
Re 3) Personally I would like this very much so to be an option since like I mentioned in the OP, there are often times I want to hear a certain track within the playlist and keep the playlist going after it is over. Since playlists tend to be a bit smaller in size, getting to see 12 tracks or so for each letter would be VERY useful instead of being limited to 12 tracks outright since the track number is appended to the track name and breaks the intended function of AA's "Search by Letter" feature.
Re 4) I acknowledged that there really isn't anything to about this since its directly due to the list size limit of AA and that showing 12 or so tracks isn't that useful anyway, so I marked this issue as resolved. I also wasn't aware this already had an option.
Re 5) Oh, I had figured that you had full control over at least the view for your app in Android Auto. You were able to specify the toolbar controls (now playing, rating, etc.) though is that truly all you're allowed to control? That is pretty shitty if that is the case.
Re 6) Gotchya
Re 7) Ah, that is also an annoying limitation, and I can see how its pretty much on google to fix this then.
Re 8) This issue seems to have been fixed since at least build 856.
Re 9) I tried replicating this to do more testing earlier but I couldn't manage to do so. I think it happens if I haven't used MediaMonkey on my phone for a long time and then plug the phone into my car, so that Android Auto has to launch the process itself. The Now Playing button doesn't appear just when I start playing, but does reappear after I start playing AND switch the head unit focus to some other AA page and then back to MediaMonkey.
Re 10) This issue seems to have been fixed since at least build 856.
Here is the old version of my post if you need to remember which number was which issue:
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/ ... clnk&gl=us