Interesting. I use an 80g iPod video and I also have a shuffle for working out and so on. I am very enamored of the iTunes software; I feel confident there must be a way to set it up so that it rips the music off your own cds as mp3, if iTunes is what's doing it.

If you go to the iTunes Edit -> Advanced tab and then click on the Importing tab, you can import using mp3 encoder. I hope this helps! I confess I have not properly evaluated other digital music storage/playing devices but I have tried using Windows Media player to keep track of all my music and it has niggling things that frustrate me.