> Most infuriatingly, the default pull-down menu (with wifi, flashlight, airplane mode, etc.) became tall enough to crowd out the music player controls and induce scrolling.

On many (most? all?) Android phones, you can move the icons in that menu around. (Press-and-hold, then drag, IIRC.) Takes a while to find out which ones you use and which you don't, but once you do you can then move the former before the latter.