If you are going to put all that effort into ripping you may want to reconsider whether to go mp3 vs lossless. You can always convert lossless to mp3 but forget going the other way once you've compressed the files. The neat thing about iPods is that they play ALAC (Apple Lossless) files. Ripping using FLAC is another popular option though most players including iPod won't play them.

John