If you've been reading up on MS, you'd noticed that earlier today, the impending release of Media Player 11 was more or less "jumped forward" when the software was leaked. While a leak two days in advance of the actual release isn't much, seeing screenshots of the new player is interesting, and to be honest it looks rather neat. Windows Media Player has a notorious history of being bloated, but a lot of people use it, so you'd hope that successive releases would improve it. WMP6 was the last popular release, and many still use it today, but after seeing it up and close, if it performs well it would fit extremely well in a media center environment where aesthetics matter.
As far as default skins go, WMP11 definitely has Winamp and Audacious beat. But then again, the modding community is what really sets them apart. Time will tell! The site with the screenshots up is pretty heavily loaded, but a mirror is available.