Ok, I get it, I am a spoiled Geek (proudly so)

At least, in Apple's mind, I guess.

Well, not all Karma owners are geeks, and they have been spoiled like this and worse...
On that note, I suppose there's no way to have Albums (within an Artist) sorted by the year an not by their name. Oh well...
In iTunes yes, I am not sure about iPod, but I mostly shuffle everything (or almost everything - for example, I usually play a list that skips long pieces - like those LvB's symphonies that BBC was kind enough to provide a few years ago), anyway.
One thing really bothers me, so far. Audio quality at the standard headset output jack is really poor. Volume keeps being relatively low, even if I activate the auto-gain fucntion. Which I don't lilke in theory as it could well decrease ever further audio quality, as Andy is confirming. I just want to be able to increase and decrease the volume as needed, and have enough power to do so without problems. I'd happily use a thicker and heavier ipod to that purpose.
I also notice I am often at full throttle when listening through earphones. Even those with rubber seals are sometimes not loud enough.
Ah, well....