There's a whole bunch of html, images and css in the SONGBIRD/PROFILE/extensions/telescope@awilco.net/ui
directory on the host pc. So you could take a backup of that and hack around with the images and css to see if you can make it more user friendly. If you know css it's not that hard.

However, it can be very time consuming to reskin it well and it may get overwritten when updates for the extension are released.

If you can program and know JSON it may be easier to create a native app. The vlc-remote codebase could provide a reasonable place to start in Qt.

Incidentally, the web interface stops responding on my n900 from time to time - I suspect it's due to the size of my media library, which makes me feel like a real app may be more stable.