Imagine just pressing your hotkey (xbox or ps button for example) and having the emulator pause and a menu overlay pops up that gives you options such as save states (with screenshots), and all the other features hotkey combinations give you, but in a easy menu.
This would work sort of like when you hit shift+tab in Steam to bring up it's in game menu.
I'm sure this is crazy hard since there are so many different kinds of emulators being used. But, that is why I'm putting it in as a long term wish.