Creative players are very good, generally the same thing for less $. I doubt the ipod will stay on top for that long. There's always going to be something to replace it, although it may take a while since they seems to be leading the market in innovations and maybe sales too.
Also I've got a 4gb Ipod nano for cheap via my work. I don't mind having to use Itunes since you can convert most stuff to it anyways.