Well I came up with a workaround, not for podcasts but for songs that will add a "virtual" playcount, might be of interest to some. I only really need play stats for my mixes, if I want to listen to an entire album I don't care if I've heard some of the songs recently.
So for my 5 star mix, and others, once the songs come up in the smartlist, sorted randomly, I select all and add the comment "Recently Synched 1". I'll then listen to the entire list of songs, and it's not hard to remember where I left off in a given day. Once I've gone through the entire list, I'll then sync again picking only songs that don't have that comment and add the comment "Recently Synched 2", (then 3, 4 etc) to those and repeat the process. Eventually all songs will have a comment, and then I'll start all over with the "Recently Synched 1" list.
Should be able to go weeks without hearing the same song twice.