You can actually RockBox 5G iPods if you don't like the Apple interface which isn't ideal for taping. I have a 5G 30 gig and it's just fine for playback (although a lot of my hipster musician friends all hate iPods...one even goes as far as to say it has a crappy headphone amp and won't drive low impedance headphones...maybe I should test illconditioned's Sony 7506's with my iPod to see if there's any truth to this) but I would rather use something like an R-09 which is 24 bit capable.
Question is, if you use a RockBoxed 5G iPod, will it work with the new Alesis hardware? Maybe someone should post this on the RockBox forum.