iPod is easily one of the best inventions... nothing can compair to it personaly
*ahem*
You obviously haven't looked around for something better
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I have a Cowon iAudio X5L and this thing is the bomb! Sound quality is far superior than the iPod's and it is full UMS (= meaning it's recognized as a hard drive by your OS and you can just drag and drop your music in it).
I would suggest you try one but they're pretty hard to find, sadly.
I think iTunes + iPod is teh l00se personally: too restricting and sound quality is okay but not that good.
But it's me, I'm very picky when it comes to audio quality.

Ooops, sorry, didn't mean to turn this in an mp3 players' comparison.