Alternatives for library management?

Question

Clearly, Apple has decided that from now on iTunes is a music player only, designed it for use primarily on small screens, and taken steps to remove most of it's functionality to manage large libraries.  Many of the removed features were those which helped maintain (duplicate finder) and organize (multiple windows, lack of detailed view of fields except in song view), and navigate (any time you change a list or view, you go to the top of the page rather than returning to where you were).  What's left is a program that is bright and pretty on a small screen and makes it easy to buy and play new music.  Clearly, they are positioning the product as a good-looking alternative for when they introduce a streaming service. 
While the program has never been ideal for managing large libraries it has been "good enough" to preclude the development of many alternatives for the relatively small percentage of users with more than 10,000 songs or those with extremely varied or classical music tastes, especially since it was closely linked to the store and could easily sync with Apple products.
Although my immediate reaction was, like so many others, to revert to 10.7, the Apple ecosystem is such that eventually there will be no option but to give in to a later version.  Already, many of the Mac apps will not work on my OS X 10.6.8 , 2G of RAM mini, and to move to OS X 10.8 will, according to all accounts, require a new machine with more memory. 
So far, my search for something to use as a "back end" data manager for iTunes seems to have turned up WinAmp for Mac, Songbird, and Doubletwist. Can anyone provide insight on any or all of these programs, specifically on issues such as field customization, sorting and playlist creation, and whether or not they can intergrate well enough with iTunes that I can still use it to sync my iPod and download podcasts and iTunes U materials while doing my maintenance and organizing on the alternate program? Or are there other programs out there that I may have missed?
After having spent far too much of the last week restoring as much functionality as I can to iTunes 11, I'm hoping to finally get back to the rest of my life and look forward to useful responses to help put an end to this unwelcome distraction forced on me by Apple.

Answer 1

Thanks for the response.
The reason I'm concerned about rolling back the version is that I have reached the limits of my 1T external drive and need more capacity.  My original thought was to just get a new mini with a bigger external drive.  I've begun having "hiccups" with the existing media drive (it's read a lot of CD's over the years).  Now, neither the mini nor the Mac come with drives, and even the diehard Apple people who buy their usb external drive through Apple give it only a 3 star rating.  So, whatever way I go, changes and $$ are at hand.  My understanding is, if I get a new machine with Mountain Lion (or Constipated Goat, or whatever the latest aninal is -- OS X 10.8) iTUnes 11 is integrated and basically can't be removed.  Also, I've synced my iPod classic (which they seem to be ready to drop any day -- no updated models in a couple of product cycles) with iTunes 11 and from what I've been reading, even though there are methods for rolling back the program, it is much harder to get the devices to roll back, and that seems to be the point where people are losing access to their material.
The reason itunes was acceptable before and is not now is that Apple has essentially decided for us that we don't need any of the, for lack of a better phrase, database managemtn functions, that those of us with large libraries have come to depend on.  My wife already says I spend way too much time with my 65,000 song and lecture library, and the new iTunes adds three to four additional steps to almost everything I want to do.
To browse the store, I have to leave the playlist I'm playing.  If I spot a song or an album that looks interesting, to check if I've already got some or all of it, I need to leave the store, get to the songs list under the main library, do my search, go back to the store and then, if I make a pruchase, go back to the music library and then click back to the playlist I've been listening to (unless I finished with what I started listening and want to change where I am, in which case, I have to go through the process of changing windows that many more times.  And, of course, everytime I do change a window, I have to scroll back to where I was.
When loading in a new CD, aside from all the back and forth in screens, at the end (now that I've reinstated the sidebar and figured out how to show downloads) it defaults to album view which, if you've got songs and spoken audio material from 2500 sources, is to all intents and purposes, useless.  So you go to yet another window (songs, which is the only window which allows you to search on more than one field) to see if you've ended up with any duplicates, which you have to do by searching because they've removed that feature as well.
Get the idea?  Not only are uselful and functional features removed, but even many of those that remain have to be discovered by trial and error.  I come from the era of top 40 radio -- the same few songs over and over, and next week the new batch of songs is out and the old ones discarded, gone to who-cares where.  That, essentially, is what they've done to iTunes by removing all the features that made managing your media easier in favor of only those features that make buying and playing the newest thing as easy as possible.
BTW, I would have no problem moving to Android if I can find the software I need.  I've been using PC's since the DOS command line days, and basically did not move into Apple's sphere until I got my 160 Gig iPod.  If I can find another device as small and with as big a drive, and a system to manage my music with, fine by me.  Apple clearly no longer wants me or all the music I've bought from them any longer.