Alright folks reporting back from the Land of MP3's and here is what I have to say.
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I ended up going with the iRiver H10 20 gig and so far have been very pleased with it. The sound quality is just amazing and although some people have said this before I can honestly say that I am hearing new things in songs I have heard at least a hundred times already.
The control is kinda intuitive with the the middle bar being used for volume when a song is playing and to scroll up and down when in your library. Skipping and stopping functions are controlled by the two buttons on the side and yes there is exponential control on the slide bar in the middle.
Although you can just open up the player and copy and paste music into it, using WMP helps to organize files better and places them into a neat little category for almost instant access.
Battery life I am getting about 16 or so hours fully charged and playing music. There is text and image viewing. Voice and radio recording and the earphones are really nice although I'm not a big fan of ear buds.
A couple of cons though. There is not a detachable battery for it so basically whatever power you have on it charged is it. The power connection is usb based, and the screen though very vivid and clear is kinda small.
All in all I love my new toy and can say its worth the money I put down for it which was about $250.