In defense of the iPod, I've had two, and both have taken a lot of shit from me. The first generation was regularly left to freeze in my car, it was dropped several times usually from mid-chest height, and it was sat on once. I had it for a good two and half years, before selling it to a friend, who still uses it to this day. We thought it died once when Air Canada lost my luggage and left it in a sub-zero warehouse for a few days, but it kicked back to life a little bit after that.
The fourth generation, non-photo, has been through most of the same stuff, though it's never been left alone in 30 below weather for very long. I'm fairly pleased with the product, though I wouldn't buy a new one. It seems newer mac products are being less reliable, probably because they're shifting gears to sell more and more machines and compromising quality in doing so, as well as that the new ones don't let you use firewire. Transfering 20 gigs of data over USB, no thank you!