I thought USB 2 supported peer-to-peer communication between 'slaves'.
Although its primary operating mode is still Master/Slave.

While USB 2 would be nice I doubt the Riot supports it so its back to USB 1 which is of course 12Mbits/sec - no where near Firewire.

I also like the iPod can be charged while 'docked' with the host via the FireWire connector - something which the Riot does not mention it supports [and probably won't due to the amperage limitations of USB because it would take too long to charge up if it used the USB cable to do so].