Hi there, i`m not sure if this will help or not but at xmas i got a 5g ipod nano and was reluctant to infest my pc with itunes so instead went hunting for an alternative and found a couple of useful free products. once i installed itunes and upgraded the nano software. i uninstalled itunes (the apple drivers will be left behind) you probably wont want to as you have an account.
the first is called sharepod which you can actually put on your ipod so you can manage your tunes from anywhere and the second which I`m sure will be of more interest yourself is copytrans manager
http://www.copytrans.net/copytransmanager.php
which will manage your iphone as well as ipods so it says (I dont have an iphone to practice on).
At worst you will be able to back up/save your music and videos and then when you go down the itunes road you haven`t lost anything.
neither of these programs installs on your pc and be can be run as a portable app from a folder or memory stick as long as the apple drivers are about somewhere
I hope this helps