Are you kidding? If anything, what you said reinforces the fact that iPod is a great music player. It had the best way to browse music library (wheel), syncing experience (playlists, play counts, etc), best interface and best industrial design, all suited for one purpose: listening to music.
It required the (still) shitty iTunes software, locked you into proprietary hardware, and had limited audio playback features in comparison to its competitors (lack of on-the-fly play queues). A music player it was, but I could (and still can't) take advantage of its storage for whatever else I wanted not could I take it other people's homes and use it to share stuff.
Yes --to the same people that think Monster cables are better than an ordinary cable, and the same people that just don't get blind A/B tests and their results...
It's funny you mention in. Back then I participated in multiple A/B tests for LAME and other encoders and did several blind tests with all my audio playback equipment. Needless to say, the iRiver was far and away superior to the iPod in practically every metric.
I used to own a pair of Sennheiser HD-280s back then, and the difference was pretty damned clear. The AKG K-540s I own now are basically unlistenable with iPods of the time.
