MP3 players - What is good?

[dansedgli]

Im in the market for a new Mp3 player. My Benq is crap and takes like 5 - 30 minutes to turn on once more than 20 songs are saved to it.

I want something that loads quickly and doesnt turn to crap after a bit of use.
Something that can play while being plugged into power as my Ben q doesnt. Im going to plug it into the AUX input in the car stereo so a ciggarette lighter charger would be handy.
It needs to keep albums in the correct order once loaded. My benq sorts the songs alphabetically as soon as you search by album. I have to create playlists just to keep the albums in order :(
Something that I can load regular PC files onto would be good so I can take work home easily.

Everyone has an ipod but a lot of people tell me they are crap. Whats the deal with ipods? Are they easy to use and load songs onto? Do songs need to be converted to a certain format before loading them to the player? How long does this take? Can they do everything I want or should I look for something else?

Are all ipods pretty much the same apart from the HD size, physical size and what screen they have?

I dont really want to spend more than $300-350 on one.