H1x0 optical recording is still only in alpha stage (the first patch was created 3 days ago).
I, for one, find stealthing with the iriver very easy. I put the unit in my pocket, set my levels, and run the remote down my arm under my longsleeve shirt, clipped to my cuff. I wait for the band to come out and press record (thank you pre-recording). If I see a very faint light coming from my wrist (thank you clip light) I adjust levels unsighted @ the next break. At the end of the night I fire up my computer and dump the wav over in ~3 minutes..
I get about 16 hours recording w/ the US$15 ipod battery I installed in about 15 minutes.
FLAC playback on my Grado SR60's does sound nice too, though a little underpowered.
Having said all that, I'll be happier once rockbox development for the iriver has settled somewhat - i've ruined a couple of recordings now (out of ~100) because i've been testing experimental builds. Of course that's my own fault and I do it in the interests of advancing rockbox...but once optical's added to cvs I think I'll have a moratorium on new rb builds for a while.
Keep in mind that rockbox have not officially released their firmware to the h1x0 yet...though that should happen within the next couple of months.