I liked having the iPod. When working in the office the iPod is my goto device to play music. One less resource pulling on an already slow computer. I said it before. As an investor their AWESOME. As a consumer, man they can piss you off.
My wife still used her iPod Touch as her audiobook device up until a few months ago (because I could add books to it w/o iTunes where I couldn't do that with her iPhone). No I load the books on Plex and she streams them.