iPod Classic: One step forward, two steps back

Back in 2005, when I was connived into buying a fourth-generation iPod, I wasn't sure what use I'd find for it. As it turned out, plenty: I now subscribe to dozens of podcasts that a few years ago I had no means to enjoy. So I was dismayed when I booted up the iPod this past Thanksgiving and was presented with the sad Mac icon.

Connecting it to my laptop or an AC adaptor wouldn't charge it, so the situation seemed grave indeed. A trip to the Genius Bar confirmed that the hard drive was likely at fault and beyond simple repairs. The Genius recommended I send the iPod to iResQ, but no free evaluations are to be found at that firm, and I didn't wish to pay good money to be told what I already knew: it's dead, Jim. Rather than recycle the iPod at the store in exchange for 10% off a new player, I bought an iPod Classic bundle at an online dealer.

Big mistake -- not the online dealer, but the iPod Classic. This sixth-generation iPod's operating system has some significant changes from my older iPod Photo, and they're not for the better:

1. The interface now takes up only half the inbuilt display screen. The right half is dedicated to a Ken Burns effect of my album art, which is gratuitous and unnecessary. Disabling album art eliminates this feature, but doing so also prevents art from being shown while listening to individual songs or albums. It's an all-or-nothing deal.
2. Navigating the menus is a slower process. My stopwatch tells me that the time between clicking on a menu item and the next submenu appearing can be as much as five seconds. Why?
3. Even navigating a single menu is tedious, due to an overload of information. Whereas previously only a single line of data -- song title, album name, genre, artist, or playlist -- would be listed, now the iPod crams as much data as possible for each selection. Do I really need to know how many songs compose a playlist? I used to be able to see 8-10 song titles per page; now it's down to 4-5, slowing down my selection process.
4. This one's the killer: the clicking sound played over the iPod's inbuilt speaker now plays over the line-out jack as well. This means scrolling through the menu causes my car's entire sound system to click loudly. Internal vs. external clicking options are not "one or the other", but "both or neither" -- and disabling it altogether eliminates an aural feedback I need to navigate the menus without taking my eyes off the road.

Neither Linux nor Rockbox nor Rockbox support the iPod Classic, and I'm told neither of those alternative iPod operating systems supports the playing of DRM songs anyway, so either would've precluded me from 15% of my iTunes library anyway. It seemed alternative hardware was the only solution. When a co-worker lent me his fifth-gen iPod Video for examination, I found that, though the first three faults listed above had not yet been introduced by that point in the MP3 player's evolution, the dual clicking noise was both present and intolerable.  I had to go further back.

I related this conundrum to a friend who was with me when I bought my iPod two years ago. He'd bought his iPod at the same time, and after a recent battery replacement, it was still working beautifully. Despite my above complaints, he's willing to trade my new iPod Classic for his like-new iPod Photo -- an offer I'll gladly take. The fewer functions a tool serves, the better it does them, and my simple needs don't include mobile videos anyway. Had my iPod Photo not broken, it would've continued to satisfy me indefinitely, so I'm happy to return to that older generation.