1. a) Is iTunes supposed to be able to get playcount and last played information from the iPod when syncing? b) if so, is it broken? (doesn't seem to work for me.)

2. Are the iTunes/iPod specific fields (ratings, playcount, etc.) stored only in the iTunes database or are they stored in some kind of custom tags in the file itself? If I uninstall/reinstall iTunes or rebuild my music library, will that information be lost?

3. Does anyone know how "error correction" in CD ripping works? How does it compare to EAC's secure mode?

4. Is there a consensus on what AAC encoding settings would give sound quality equivalent to LAME's --alt-preset standard?

5. What's the deal with iPod's alarm function? Using 2.0.1 with Xplay it didn't work in any reliable way. 2.1 with iTunes it mostly worked, although it had issues with long playlists and causing the iPod's menus to all be blank. After reading that iTunes copying all your files into a single directory is the cause of all the skipping I was getting (I still don't understand why that is) I uninstalled iTunes and decided to try Media Center 9 while waiting for Apple to fix this bug. Now no skipping, but the alarm no longer works properly with playlists. So is the alarm function linked to some peculiar file structure that only iTunes is able to get (kinda) right?

Thanks,
Ric