You can obtain a PCI firewire card for around 10-15UKP now and since many PC users don't have USB2 yet, it's not too much of an inconvienience to fit an extra card (apart from laptop users maybe).

The iPod doesn't really have any DRM. It doesn't allow you to download your music to another Mac, but not only is that easily circumvented, but it isn't much of an issue anyway.