Thanks again to Antonio for this tip...

Looks like those of you that use auto-playlists are in luck, with an extra step or two though...

Just days after a clever Zune owner figured out a way around the "three-play rule," another has found a method for restoring auto-playlist functionality -- sort of, anyway. As you know, this feature vanished with the introduction of Zune software v2.0, but apparently, getting some semblance of it back doesn't take a whole lot of effort. All you have to do is create an auto-playlist in Windows Media Player, save said playlist as an M3U file and watch your Zune handle the rest. Head on over to the read link for all the details, but don't uncross your fingers for Microsoft to bring the official version back in the not-too-distant future.

Easier autoplaylists using WMP [it can save rating in the ID3 tags] ... check "maintain my star rating as global" in WMP!
- Create an autoplaylist in WMP
- Save playlist as m3u (use Save As option and choose m3u)
You don't need to do any conversions to .zpl because Zune Software can read .m3u lists directly!

Source : Zunerama via Engadget