Well, pretty sure my Zune died (can't sync or restore firmware, so basically a brick). Was thinking about upgrading anyway (only got an 8gb since it was on sale), so this is just a "Screw you MS, I am not buying your (mp3 player-related) crap anymore. Still going to touch myself to your OSes though" as opposed to a "Burn in hell MS, but I will still touch myself to your OSes". Yeah, I am kind of an MS whore...
So, anyone have any suggestions? I don't need obscene sound quality or fancy video-playback capabilities (although, I do like being able to see the album art of whatever song it is playing. Makes it easier to skip through to find whatever track I want). Just something that plays music and (preferably) doesn't require fancy software to load music onto it. I can just as easily make a playlist in foobar and copy the music over.
Oh, and durability. I take care of stuff, but I like the security of knowing I can run something over with a car (an exaggeration, but you get what I mean).
Thanks.

I don't really know what model to recommend, but I can tell you this : avoid any mp3 player that uses Rhapsody manager. Avoid it like the plague.
As soon as I can afford it, my next mp3 player will be a Ipod something. I don't know which one yet. They are quite expensive indeed, but I'm willing to pay the price and see if the Ipod products are as good as I heard. I'm just sick of the junk that you pay 80-90 dollars that doesn't even last a couple years, even if you take good care of it.

The 16 GB Sansa View is looking pretty nice. Especially liking the audio-memo recorder thing. Anyone have experience with that? Been looking for a way to take voice memos for a while now. Also, I see a few people complaining that the buttons are overly sensitive. Is there a lock-switch thing like the Zune has, or would I just have to keep it pointed out?
But yeah, definitely liking that thing. Twice the storage of my current brick (very good chance of that thing getting doused in lighter fluid and/or stuffed with gunpowder...) and the ability to expand storage sounds nice.

The memo thing is a standard voice recorder, nothing flash but enough to get the job done. The model I have has a sliding lock switch but I've never really used it, the only moderately sensitive control on mine is the wheel and that only changed the volume. If anything I find the buttons around the wheel a bit hard to push but then I have giant hands with short fingernails

What format does it write the audio as?
And sounds good to me. Guess I'll order it from Amazon. Thanks.

I THINK it's .wav but I might be mixing it up with my PDA since I've actually used that for audio notes more than once

Just an update for all 0 people who give a crap:
Arrived today. So far, me likey it. About the same dimensions as my Zune, just a bit thicker (and heftier), but in a good way.
The kicker: the Sansa View has better Win7 integration than my Zune. It found the right drivers upon being plugged in, and even popped up a fancy menu that actually treats it like "just another" device. VERY nice.

Very nice, glad you like it,
Can you use Windows media player to load it up or does it use its own stuff? I've got an old 80gig Zune that ive been thinking about changing for something else, I hate the zune rating system, and Itunes for that matter.... at least media player I could rate stuff 1-5 and sort my stuff easier.

Seems to have its own software to sync folders, but it seems largely focused on just using Windows Explorer. Still fiddling around, but it looks like you can have it sync with playlists. So in that case, use whatever media player you like, save the playlist to a format it accepts, and then just click "sync" every so often.
Just tested it. Pretty much have to use Windows Media Player (foobar at least, does not save to the right kind of playlist format), but it seems to sync with the contents. So worst case scenario: Make the playlist in a different program, import/re-save it in WMP, and you are done.