So, what's the bottom line? Is this an upgrade that should be skipped?
Based on reviews, the ipod upgraders (regardless of version) have to be considered to be Apple's "most dangerous."
On just about every one of these Apple upgraders, someone or more than one macker posts negative comments. Some qualify what they post, some just post that "it sucks and crashes, destroyed my ipod (or whatever)"
These "it sucks, crashes, and destroyed my directory" etc. postings are taken seriously enough that I, for one, will skip the upgrade and wait on the the next. Then the next upgrader comes along and what's the first comment? "It sucks, crashes, and destroys everything." Were there no beta testers? Granted, it's useless to ask anyone from Apple.
To those heros out there who sacrifice their macs and their ipods to determine that an upgrader "sucks, crashes, and erases everything", how about going to System Profiler and post everything you have on your Mac prior to performing the catastrophic upgrade. Maybe you forgot to unplug all the firewire cables, maybe you have some bizzare PCI card, maybe you're running SCSI. If a particular upgrader is going to hose every mackers directory, at least post how you configured your Mac so we'll know which Macs will be affected. Or, maybe you're 100% right and it crashes every newly bought unmodified Mac or ipod!
One more small request - then tell us why Apple's beta testers didn't do their jobs.
Am I asking too much? Look. We're Mac users, not Pee Cee users, just run Apple System Profiler before posting catastrophic comments that must be taken seriously. I do take your posting seriously, at least show the courtesy of describing the circumstances in as much detail as there is.
Thank you, fellow mackers.