2.1 update making listening to podcasts even worse

Question

Since updating to 2.1, it seems that the iPod will automatically play the next podcast in the list, which, given that it has always shown podcasts in reverse order, means that it will start to play an older (already listened to) podcast.
I had finally started to accept the fact that podcasts were displayed in the wrong order, but to have it automatically start playing older podcasts really annoys me, and makes no sense whatsoever.

Answer 1

I think continuous play should be the default, but there are other syncing issues, which have existed, which may have or may not have changed with iTunes 8, or 2.1.
I am currently using iTunes 8, iPhone 2.02 (which should be similar enough to iPod Touch for this discussion), and am still using habits from the past year of use. Like the earlier poster, I create smart playlists, putting podcasts in preferred order, and play them through. The Podcast Tab on the iPhone was retired earlier because of it being single play only (dangerous on the road) and the fact that I kept getting podcast I had already heard in that list.
Here are issues under that situation, past experience, which has moded my current behavior.
Placing phone in charging dock or speaker dock rather than attached to mac, the phone thinks it is syncing with iTunes, and resets playcount to zero, for podcasts that have already been played.
If you play the podcasts as a smart playlist, which does allow back to back podcast listening, apparently the playcount in the podcast tab on the phone is not necessarily affected.
Crossfade, which is sometimes accidentally rather than intentionally set, can allow play of one podcast before the playcount bit is flipped for the previous podcast.
You simply are not going to get proper syncing behavior if there are multiple locations for sync preferences, or if a particular behavior (Sync back to Mac) is constantly assumed, in conversation between the Pod or Phone, and iTunes.
I have not tested sync issues (a short podcast or two should work as test) since iTunes 8, and do not disagree that there should be a choice for Single Play or Continuous Play, or that Video Podcasts and Audio Podcasts should be segregated, but I prefer continuous play of multiple podcasts as default, and feel that not enough people use Playlists, smart or dumb, to get around the user interface issues assumed everytime a new method of presenting content is introduced.
That is, It seems stopping or skipping through the continuous play of a list of podcast would be less difficult than having to hunt and peck through a list to to choose the next podcast while driving or such, so I think there may be more cheers than jeers about the new system of playthrough; which may or may not affect syncing issues at all.