Fair enough.

Just a thought for you though, could your problem be that your files are MP3 and not AAC? Do you have a file from iTunes that you could look at in a third party tagger to see if that gives you any clues? IIRC, the ID3v2 tag is at the front, while the ID3v1 is at the end. I don't personally own an iPod so I don't know if that could be your problem or not.

As to my suggestion of asking in an Apple group, my thinking was that there may be someone more versed in Apple that could get you going in the right direction.