Conclusion
The bottom line is that you need to balance which type of player you want with the way you buy your online music. Think about this: There used to be a battle between VHS and Beta. VHS 1 and all those Beta movies you bought could not be played on anything. The battle of the online music is the same for your MP3 player. You'll buy music online eventually; it's just too easy not to.
The MP3 player market is rapidly changing. Digital music players not only play music but you can also see your photos (and soon you'll be able to watch movies) The micro drive and hard drive players are set to go through another growth in storage. Mitsubishi recently announced that it has a new micro drive coming out at the end of this year that will increase its 6GB micro drive player to 20GB (the same as the largest first-generation iPod). In addition, Mitsubishi also announced a 1TB drive.
Sony, Napster, Creative, and others want you to buy their music players, not Apple's. The battle of the MP3 players will surely be an excellent example of competition that breeds better products. The winner will be the consumer.