Absolute worse case scenario will be that we will continue to us MC to manage our media libraries, and use ITunes to copy music to the Ipods and nothing else.
The problem is that for a lot of people, this is not an insignificant situation -- this could actually be a pretty bad scenario. I know that it may sound like a small issue to some, but having to use multiple programs for this task is the sort of thing that could really wear people down after a little while. There are also potential issues with using MC to manage and itunes to sync, such as the fact that tags stored in the MC library (and not in the files themselves, which is the case with all Audible files) may not be easily transferable to itunes. The end result could be a less than "easy" process, and my fear is that the less "loyal" MC users who use iPods might start thinking about just giving in and using iTunes, which already offers some unique features like being able to make ordinary mp3's "bookmarkable" (as far as I know, this is not yet possible with MC.)
This wouldn't be so much of an issue if the iPod wasn't so popular, but iPods are by far the most common mp3 player, and this is a key element for a lot of people. I'll personally continue to use MC regardless of what happens, but I'm not sure how the "general public" ipod user will react.
Hopefully we'll know whether MC support for the iPod Classic is a possibility or not relatively soon.
Thanks for any further information on this,
Larry