What reading I've done isn't encouraging. It can be done, but it requires jailbreaking the ipod, and installing an SSH and TFTP client and getting yourself a rainstick and chicken's feet.
I just didn't know if you guys knew something that we don't. I've read a few posts where Jim says something to the effect of "We think it's possible now" and some other vague statements that made me wonder if you guys had actually figured out how to access it but were concerned that a future firmware update would break the connectivity or something. If that's the case, I'll gladly never update the firmware if it means I can use MC to sync to it.
I thought I had a workflow figured out that would make it useable. I have an iPod Touch, and my fiancee has a Shuffle. Her Shuffle works great under MC. My workflow gets the job done on the Touch. Then she plugged her Shuffle in to charge and iTunes decided, all on its own, to just erase everything on her Shuffle. I changed settings so that it wouldn't do it again, ejected her Shuffle, plugged it back in and started copying files from MC to her Shuffle. And iTunes decided it just had to fire up and mount her iPod, which caused the transfer in MC to stop, and then iTunes once again helpfully erased everything from her iPod.
It's really starting to feel like I need to maintain two seperate libraries on two seperate computers, or abandon using MC for this purpose at all, all because of iTunes.
This, plus the fact that the Touch seems to be fond of randomly giving up on playing a song and skipping to the next one has me wondering if I shouldn't trade it in and get a Zune. This whole experience has really soured me on the "magic" of the iPod.