The fact that, no matter what kind of custom cable you try to rig, it is completely useless without the base is just a staggeringly bad design.
Actually, considering the PowerCD's capabilities, it wasn't such a bad design for its time. You've got to remember that
CD Technology was in its 1x infancy, as was Multi-Media for that matter.
I bought a re-furb PowerCD as a computer-less Multi-Media Display Platform for my business. Its capabilities were unparalleled for its time, AFAIK. It could run a Slide Show off the
new PhotoCDs or VideoClip Presentations off the
new VideoCDs! That'd be way too much electronics to put into the "spinner." just take a look at the size of that ASIC in the base unit and all the other chips-n-digital glue. Not too shabby, even for its price, IMHO.
I'll bet if you look through the pages of
AppleDesign you might find some of FROG Design's whimsical Macs sporting a front door loading CD long before the advent of the TAM!
(Well, video-out iPod, anyway.)