Mr. Mac Fixit,
Your argument might hold water if the iPod were actually better than an iRiver at its main job. I've compared iPods to my iRiver, and they just don't sound as good. Neither the amplifier nor the supplied headphones of the iPod sound as good as their counterparts with the iRiver. And why doesn't the iPod support Ogg Vorbis? It wouldn't cost anything extra in licensing fees for Apple to include it, and I can't imagine the development costs would be greater than negligible.
So if I'm spending >$300 for a box to take up what precious little space I have in my pocket, why wouldn't I want as many features on it as possible? I listen to public radio on my iRiver almost as much as I listen to Oggs of (some of) my 1500 CDs. I use it to rip my LPs to mp3 to make them portable. I record concerts and lectures on it. I can mount my iRiver on my Windows and Linux boxes and transfer files (use it as a portable hard drive) WITHOUT ADDITIONAL SOFTWARE. Moreover, what is the "iPod Photo" if not an mp3 player with a mediocre additional feature? The iRiver sounds better, has more features, and is cheaper than an iPod. Why on earth would anyone get an iPod?
As for the #1 music store, don't you mean Wal Mart? Anyone who buys music with DRM either doesn't really care about music or is inviting a world of hurt down the road when they find out some minor glitch renders their collection unplayable.
Stop trying to console yourself for having settled for less by trying to humiliate other people into making the same mistake.
Fanboy.