Hi Jimm
Not sure if you're aware but it may be helpful for you - Apple offer a free application called Remote which means if you have either an iPhone, iTouch or iPad you can use these as a wireless remote control for changing music in iTunes on your Hi-Fi linked PC. It allows you all the functionality such as scrolling through and creating playlists, searches, albums listing, artist listing, song listing etc etc. It basically mirrors your entire iTunes library on your PC so the songs don't even have to be stored on your device.
If your PC is connected up to your Hi-Fi directly and you therefore don't need to be able to stream your music to it then, if you have an iTouch, iPad or iPhone, this remote may be all you need to get the convenience you seem to be looking for without any cost?