the iPod is smaller -- not by as much as you'd think, though -- see the attached

Glad to see a side-by-side comparison. But if you don't take into account the scoops in the sides of the Riot, it's as wide as the iPod is tall and is twice as tall as the iPod is wide, which means you could place two iPods within the space of one Riot. And since most places where you'd want to worry about the size aren't going to accomodate the strange shape of the Riot, the iPod is way smaller, in my mostly ininformed opinion, as I've never held a Riot.

As far as the iPod's UI goes, it works pretty well, but I don't like the fact that it works in Soup mode by default and that it doesn't take ``The''s into consideration in its sorting. I should bother to create playlists for everything, I suppose.