Get a HI-MD mini disc player from Sony. They are dirt cheap, small, and each $10 dollar minidisc that you can buy holds 1gig of music. And its sooo durable. I drop it all the time...if I had an ipod, I would have broken it by now.
Iriver is really good and 5 Gig should be enough for lifting. Also check out Archos... Both IRiver and Archos have drag and drop which is a HUGE feature.
Sony Looks cool, but their file transfer program is HORRIBLE.