After a while, I realized that the real issue was not only completely unexpected, but completely bizzar as well. The hold stops working when you press on the screen! It’s like some kind of bizarre-o-world touch screen "feature" of sorts: As long as the hold switch is on, the scroll wheel doesn’t do a thing, but if the hold switch is on and I press on the screen then I can do whatever I want with the scroll wheel. LAME!! What’s the point of the hold button?

Is anyone else experiencing this? I can’t find it documented anywhere else, probably because just about any search with the word "ipod" in it gives innumerable results. I’ve had this G5 Video iPod for a little over a year and the symptoms started about 2 months ago.