My friend considered all the advice here, but ended up taking his own advice and got an iRiver 20gig. I got to play with it for a few minutes and my first impression is that the user interface has iPod beat hands down. But then I noticed quirks in the functionality: lag while changing tracks, switching from pause to play each time I changed a track, etc.

It's no empeg, but it should be giving iPod more of a run for its money.