This problem exists in MC 11, and might just be an issue with the way I'm using podcasts, but it'd be great if it could be improved for MC 12.
Basically the problem is that my podcasts aren't cleaned up nicely.
I sync my podcasts to my iPOD and listen on that. I have my iPOD's play count info synced back to MC and that is applied to my podcasts correctly. I know this because my iPOD sync playlist filters for podcasts with playcount=0.
The issue is that the podcasts just keep accumulating until I delete them manually. While that isn't too much of a hassle, it becomes a hassle because MC keeps trying to download the podcasts again right after I delete them. This is probably because I have my podcasts set to download all episodes, but I have to do that because sometimes more than one episode is published very quickly, so if I only download the latest I could miss some.
So, what I'd like are some more options for cleaning up podcasts. For me personally an option like Delete X Days After Being Played would be perfect. I assume others have their own usage patterns and would like other options.
Alternatively, it'd be nice if there was an option to say Never Automatically Download a Podcast I've Deleted Manually.
Finally, I have one more issue related to podcasts. I've noticed that sometimes if I've synced a podcast episode to my iPOD and then (while trying to cleanup my podcasts) delete and then re-download an episode, the sync logic is not recognizing the second download (of the same episode) as the exact same episode so I end up with two copies of the same episode on my iPOD.