You do tend to find people who will sway towards the ipod because, well, it's an ipod! To be honest, it is probably still one of the slickest looking hdd mp3 players out there, but unfortunately these days that is the only edge it has.
Being a total gadget freak and techno slave I have listened to and fiddled with a vast number of mp3 players, and functionally there really is nothing to recommend the ipod over it's peers apart from the 'it's an ipod' factor.
As I advised Steve, check out
www.advancedmp3players.co.uk, ok they don't stock every make and model you can get, but they really know their stuff and offer extremely good advice (plus a price match on all their stock). There's also a 'guide' which allows you to enter your criteria and it returns the models that meet them, allowing you to make a decision based on the user reviews or looks or whatever.
V.