iTunes 4.9, iPod Updater and Podcasts
I picked up iTunes 4.9 yesterday and started playing with it. The podcast support is pretty good at this point. The directory is coming online in the iTunes Store podcast area pretty nicely. Unfortunately, there are some issues that have disappointed me.
First, if you were subscribed to podcasts that are using BitTorrent feeds to save on bandwidth, you will have to keep a client like iPodderX or Azureus around to continue to pick up those feeds. From the Apple iTunes/Podcast FAQ:
What kind of podcasts can I play in iTunes?
You can listen to most common podcast file formats in iTunes, including MP3, AAC, WAV, and .M4B. BitTorrent and WMA are some podcast formats that are not supported.
This is very unfortunate. I was trying to use BitTorrent whenever I could to help podcasters on bandwidth. I guess it was a good thing that I recently registered iPodderX anyway. 
The second issue that has me puzzled is why Apple did not include an “All” option in the new Podcasts section on the iPod. The way that it is setup now is that you go into Music->Podcasts and then select the podcast playlist that you want to listen to. When all of the podcasts in that playlist are finished, it returns back to the main menu. I would like to have the option to just play all of the podcasts so I can start it when I head out on a long road trip instead of having to fumble with the iPod to change playlists while driving.
Hopefully enough people will give feedback to Apple about these issues and they will put out an update with some tweaks.
You and I must have different version ipods. My problem is the exact opposite of yours. I WANT my podcasts to be sorted into their own playlists for each feed, but all I get when go to Music->Podcasts is a list of every single mp3 I've downloaded. It makes it impossible to use. IpodderX is still king.
I haven't yet installed the iPod updater yet (I have a 60G iPod Photo).
I found that I could listen to my subscribed podcasts on my iPod by drilling into the “Podcast” genre from the Music menu. But what I ~really~ wanted was to have an option to listen to all podcasts which I haven't yet played.
So, I created a smart playlist in iTunes, which filtered on “Genre contains Podcast” _and_ “Play count is 0″. Nothing shows up in this playlist in iTunes; but in the iPod, I now have the option to play all podcasts for which I haven't yet listened through to the end. Perfect.
Since pretty much all of my iPod usage is via smart playlists, adding this playlist dovetailed nicely. YMMV for different usage patterns.