Originally Posted by
Necronopticous
I had a lot of the same sentiments as you when I went into the market for my MP3 player recently.
I went with the Sansa Fuze.
<center><img src="http://www.letsgodigital.org/images/artikelen/48/sandisk-sansa-fuze.jpg"/></center>
I am very happy with it. It is a drag and drop device, so you can throw your music on it just like you're throwing it onto a flash drive--no need for ass iTunes style software. Battery life is great. It is small and stylish. Expandable with up to 16GB of Micro SDHC memory.
Unfortunately item 3 on your list is still a problem on this device, and every other device that I know of. It is truly a shame, I also think that meta data is a terrible way to categorize music.
I did a lot of research hunting down this device, and I think it is the closest you're going to get to your listed ideals. The best part is that <a href="http://www.woot.com/">Woot</a> constantly sells these things for dirt cheap (I got mine for like $30), just check every day.