Much of the zune visuals live on in the xbox and windows 8 as well. WhileMS had some terrible design in the past they seem to be entering a new phase where design is at the forefront.
It's not killed, it's called Windows Phone 7 now.
There was a program called Zune for Windows desktop which was like Windows Media Player but with a radical UI.
There still is. It is the default way to sync Zune HDs and WP7 devices.
Something similar will probably surface for Windows 8 Metro interface.