Emacs completion matches selection UI

[Ted Zlatanov]

In "(emacs.info) Completion Commands" there is help for using the
rudimentary buffer to select completion matches.  I was struck by how
hard to use this was, compared to more recent packages like these:

http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/AutoComplete
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/CompanyMode

Is there any chance the default Emacs appearance for selecting
completion matches can be improved (not necessarily by default) for
24.4?  I would help with this but don't know what's "state of the art"
and if there's already work in this direction.

Thanks
Ted